Switching Styles

There was recently a good post over at the Budo Bum on Substack regarding switching styles. An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here. 

While browsing reddit, I came across a user who said they were a member of the Ki Society for ten years but had recently moved to an area without any dojos within commuting distance. They asked whether it would be possible to transition to Aikikai, which does have local dojos, without having to start over from scratch.

I’ve heard similar questions many times. Someone has been training for a while in one style of martial arts and wants to train in a different style, and to be recognized in the new style at the same rank they are in the previous style. I get it. The thinking seems to be, you’ve invested a lot of time in a style and you want to be recognized for that. It feels like you’ve wasted your time if you have to go back to beginner status in a martial art that is similar to the one you’ve been training in.

I have to ask: why are you training?

Are you training to acquire rank and status in an obscure martial arts organization? (Let’s be honest, most martial arts organizations are obscure in the world we live in. Outside their own members, few people even know they exist.)

Or are you training to master yourself and a martial art?

The fact that this question is being asked suggests that said person is training to acquire rank and status, which I will admit are important to a lot of people for a lot of reasons. I just don’t think they are of much real value or relevancy to the practice of any form of budo.

 

We train for many reasons: to become stronger, to defend ourselves, to become better fighters, to be physically respected, to improve ourselves as human beings, to master deeper principles that are taught through training, and sometimes just for the joy of it.

Sometimes this is simply stated as: “I want to get a black belt.” Which often stands in for: I want to be stronger, a better fighter, and be physically respected.

Clearly the questioner likes training. The problem here is that they are very attached to the rank and status they have achieved in the Ki Society, and they are confusing the symbols of achievement for the real achievements, which are the skills and growth they have acquired through training. I’m sure the Aikikai wouldld not consider giving them equivalent rank, simply because the syllabi are not equivalent. Their skills, though, would not disappear just because they are training in an Aikikai dojo rather than a Ki Society dojo. They would still have their physical and technical mastery regardless of the color belt they are wearing—and if that isn’t respected by the new group members, I doubt it would be a place you want to train at anyway.

Looking at the question from a slightly different angle, after 10 years of regular practice, your understanding and mastery of the Ki Society syllabus should be pretty solid. Training with the Aikikai is a great chance to see the art from a slightly different perspective, and perhaps work on aspects of Aikido that haven’t been emphasized in the current dojo. The Aikikai and the Ki Society have differing pedagogies, but ikkyo, nikyo sankyo, yonkyo, iriminage, and shihonage are the same techniques in both organizations. They simply use different methods to teach them.

The only thing you have to lose by training in a different dojo is your attachment to your rank. In exchange you gain new perspectives on your art, new training partners, and new opportunities to grow.

This is an instance where ranks and their acquisition is definitely a negative influence on budo training. If we didn’t have all of these ranks, it would be easy to go into a new dojo and be a beginner there. We wouldn’t be “giving up” any rank or status. After all, it takes time and effort to achieve any rank in budo, and Rank Hath Its Privileges. Who wants to just give up anything we’ve worked so hard to achieve.

Each organization has their own requirements for their ranks, and to be recognized as a 1st dan in Iaido in the International Kendo Federation has nothing whatsoever to do with being recognized as a 1st dan in the All Japan Iaido Federation. Their test requirements are different. They require demonstrated skill in different kata. If I were to go into an Iaido Federation dojo, I would go straight to the lowest rank in the room. Sure, I know something about Kendo Federation Iai. I’ve managed to get to 5th dan in the Kendo Federation Iai system. I know nothing of the Iaido Federation’s Iai system though. I don’t even know the kata they use for training and testing. How could I expect to be recognized as a 5th dan by the Iaido Federation when I don’t even know the basics of their kata?

An Aesthetic of Taijiquan Practice

Over at Thoughts on Tai Chi, there as a recent post about the poetry within Taijiquan practice. I believe this applies to any martial art. An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.

 

The real poetry in Tai Chi is in its simplicity. The problem is that it’s nothing you can show to others, it’s something invisible.

All high arts strive towards simplicity. Why? Because you can judge all high art forms by the perfection in its details. And here is the thing: The more simple something is, the harder it is to perfect.

• Holding one high note is harder than just sing “anything”
• Making pottery perfectly straight, thin and absolutely even is harder than making curvy shapes
• In Chinese calligraphy, single brush strokes should be practiced thousands of times before trying to connect two together.

There are so many more examples that would make the same point. But it is also the same in martial arts. Even though I am not a fan of Japanese martial arts in general, I still think they often do a better job at this than in the Chinese. Just look at Kendo, Iaido or Japanese bow arts – they are all about perfecting one single strike, one single shot. Endless repetition of something seemingly simple.

Even a seemingly crude and unsophisticated style as Karate, compared to Chinese martial arts, does something very well. It only has a few types of kicks and punches that are repeated and perfected. Here is something I really respect, the philosophy that less is more. Or like Bruse Lee famously said: “I don’t fear someone who has trained ten thousand kicks once, but someone who as trained one kick ten thousand times.” This is a generalization of course, but it certainly makes a good point.

And I believe that this type of mind-set is also something that separates great Tai Chi practitioners from the mediocre ones. The mediocre ones are always obsessed about visual appearance. They like to train in Chinese traditional clothes, they like a ceremony around the practice and in class, and everything around the art. And obviously – they like collecting forms, both empty handed and weapon forms.

And the worst Tai Chi practitioners do everything out of own vanity and ego, they want to feel they know something “special” and look pretty while practicing. Some are lost cases. How much they train, they can never understand Tai Chi, because they are not interested in the art itself, but they use it as a tool to feel superior to others.

And on the other side of the spectrum, there are those who only focus on the perfection of every single movement they do. Just to raise hands, or turn to the right, becomes something very difficult, something they spend years and years to perfect. They practice on how to feel how the balance and weight distribution in their own body changes by every little small shift and movement. They study years and years to embody the simple Tai Chi principles in every movement and all of the time.

Poetry means to cut away everything unnecessary, and to strive for the most simple and clear expression possible. You can show poetry through words and sounds. But when you achieve it in Tai Chi, it looks like “nothing”. Because you can’t see it.

Just Show Up

At the Applied Methods blog, there was an insightful post about the standards we apply to ourselves. Below is an excerpt. The full post may be read here.

 

Every dojo has its own rhythm, its own expectations, its own way of doing things. Mine is simple: if you train here, you show up. Not perfectly, not endlessly, not more than your life allows - just consistently.

Recently someone suggested that expecting this might be a “privileged stance that lacks empathy”, or that speaking about commitment somehow conflicts with the values of karate. The ‘dojo kun’ was mentioned.

That tells me something important, and it has nothing to do with training schedules.

It shows how easily a standard can be mistaken for a judgment.

In the dojo, commitment isn’t measured by how many classes you attend. It’s measured by what you do with the time you can attend.

I’ve taught people who could only train once a week because of work, family, or life pulling in every direction. They were some of the most dedicated students I’ve had. They showed up, stayed connected, and kept moving forward. There was nothing lacking in them.

But that is not the same as the student who could train but doesn’t, or the one who never shows up when injured to watch from the sidelines, or the one who talks about wanting to improve but never takes even the smallest step toward it. Those patterns aren’t about circumstance. They’re about choice. And instructors see that difference immediately.

 

A Teacher's Perspective on Martial Arts Instruction

Below is an excerpt from a post that appeared at Budo Journeyman regarding the author's insights into the challenges and rewards to teaching his martial art. The full post may be read here.

Hopefully, there is something here for everyone, whatever stage you are at.

Previously, I have written two pieces on my view of how to work towards taking a grading exam: Tips on Karate Gradings. Part 1, Preparation. - by Tim Shaw. And: Tips on Karate Gradings. Part 2. The Grading itself. This piece has crossovers with that but goes into the area of general development.

Here I am going to map out the short and the long trajectory. Instant jumps forward and those that take a while to work out.

Flipping the switch.

This is an easy win. One piece of information, a position in kata, an approach presented by the Sensei and your mind grasps it straight away and, with hardly any effort you fix it – just like flicking on a light switch.

It is really useful to students to be able to identify the ease of such an adjustment. All ‘wins’ are valuable and convince them that progress is really happening.

Maturation – Time to bed-in.

This is based upon steady input and larger/smaller adjustments; but also lots of hard work and repetition. The good habits need establishing and time to solidify. The weaknesses and bad habits that students pick up need overriding and eliminating; it can’t happen like the flick of a switch.

As an instructor, you can measure how successful this is by putting the student under pressure to see if, or when, the wheels fall off.

Example; solo kata instruction:

The Sensei drip-feeds the adjustment, then the hard work of repetition begins. At the right time the teacher gets the student to rip into full-bore runs-through, and if the adjustments have not bedded in, and they go back to making the same (earlier) errors, then it’s ‘Yikes’ and back to the drawing board – Sensei face-palm, then more repetitions.

Self-revelation.

Not as obvious as you might think; but if it happens properly, it’s the one that the student (and the Sensei) value the most, as it came from the person’s own sweat and mature reflection. Truly Nectar from the Gods.

BUT… I have seen it used as a fig leaf, a cheap ‘get-out’ for the Sensei.

The bull***t side of this is when the student is told, ‘you just have to repeat and repeat and repeat and the higher level will reveal itself’. Yes, at base level, the logic is sound, but…

It can also be a convenient fantasy. The student is caught in a bind and the unscrupulous Sensei gets away Scott-free.

Here’s how it works; If the student fails to reach the next level, the Sensei convinces them they just haven’t worked hard enough. The responsibility is put squarely on the student’s shoulders, while the Sensei just sits back. Add to this that the student can’t question it, because it looks like they are being entitled and whiney, wanting it all on a plate. Typical Catch-22.

However, this type of self-revelation can happen and should happen, but it comes out of thoughtful and targeted micro-clues supplied by the Sensei to coax the student to join up the dots so that they can truly own it. This rests on the soft skills of the Sensei, to really know the student and read the situation.

 

 

 

 

 

The Aesthetics of Kata

At the Ichijoji Blog, there was an interesting essay about kata and it's role in developing the necessary mental qualities required for combat. An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.

It's well into 2026 now, but the catalyst for this rather freewheeling essay was something that is particularly noticeable around the end of the year, when everything is thoroughly swept and tidied in preparation for the New Year holiday – the aesthetic of neatness and simplicity. 

You can almost feel it as you walk along the streets, even in some of the downtown areas. It is also there in the stripped down aesthetic of the tea ceremony, as well as the look we have come to call, however erroneously, ‘Zen’. More to the point, in terms of this blog, it is also reflected in the clean lines and spare movements of many styles of Japanese martial arts.

Simplicity and chaos

Yet, in reality, this simplicity exists alongside a dense visual clutter that is common in many aspects of daily life: street signs, websites, kimono designs, homes and offices – sometimes overwhelmingly so. Even the natural world seems chaotic –  with plants and insects in great profusion in untended parts of the city, let alone the countryside.

It might very well be that, from very early times, when land first needed to be cleared for agriculture and habitation, people felt a need to bring some sort of order to the world, and strong, precise boundaries became important, the decisiveness of the boundary line being a statement in itself. In a form of agriculture that involves flooding rice fields every year, there is also a very obvious value to marking clearly what is going to be underwater, and what is not. Many of the farmhouses themselves, some in the countryside no longer, can look like raised islands, mounted on a base of stone. A similar effect can be seen in some of the famous rock gardens.

Certainly, there is something attractive in the way inessentials can be pared away and clarity imposed upon the seeming chaos of the natural world, and this has become a feature of the Japanese aesthetic. 

The chaos of combat – distilled but disorganised?

Combat is another kind of chaos so it may not come as a surprise that a similar approach can be seen in the way unpredictability is reduced in Japanese martial arts by concentrating on the essentials, both in the clarity of the movements themselves, and the variety of movements or techniques that are taught. 

These are typically organised in kata, which may be seen as a distillation of a vast array of potential techniques, rather than a full catalogue of techniques or an approximation of a realistic exchange.

A distillation it may be, but one that may appear somewhat ad hoc, with little obvious sense of organisation (in many cases) beyond the progression through the various kata. To an outsider, this can seem lopsided or incomplete (and perhaps to some insiders, as well), but is this just a matter of perspective? Could it be analagous to another well-known aspect of Japanese aesthetics –  asymmetry (fukinsei)? This is often mentioned as an important feature of Japanese aesthetics (coming from China, of course, and closely linked to Zen), and although few in the west would think anything unusual about asymmetry in design, it may be that this kind of principle in knowledge is more difficult to appreciate.

If a more profound framework exists, it is well hidden. (Which is not to say the art itself or the skills it develops cannot be profound). Instead of a broad organising principle, there are fundamental movements, examples of approaches or solutions to particular problems – a set of ideal or abstracted responses. The shape of the whole remains undefined – the student seeks depth of understanding – a refinement through which he or she develops the ability to deal with the unrehearsed nature of real combat.

 

 

 

The Mind and Structure in Taijiquan

At Thoughts on Tai Chi, there was recently a post about the how the mind creates the structure of the body, and how if one's mind is disturbed, the structure becomes compromised. An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here. 

If you tense up because your opponent is strong, you will break your own structure even before he does anything.

Everything starts in the mind. But as Tai Chi is doing, we can say that when you perform or apply Tai Chi, it starts in the body.

The mind-set, or the natural state of just being, could be understood as Wuji, or non-differential But as soon as there is the intent of action, there is Taiji. Here I mean the philosophical concept “Tai Chi” where Yin and Yang has separated and work together through the movement of opposites. Here I separate the philosophical term from the shorter form of Tai Chi Chuan through the spelling. It’s not something recommended to do, but I think it’s a pedagogical thing to do and this is not an academic paper.

But the mind-state must be be correct for the movement and structure to be correct. The mind-state that is developed and deepened over time, is called “Wuxin” or “No Mind”. This is when the heart and mind is still and kept empty, calm and relaxed. It’s called “No Mind” because the heart is kept still, when neither unwanted thoughts or emotions can arise.

But here is the krux – to feel and know if your mind is tense or not, might be hard to understand. Why do we never talk about a tense mind? Worries, thoughts, and things we need to figure out or deal with, can make our mind tense. And then we get stuck in this state of tension though we don’t recognize it as such. It gets a habit just like tensing the shoulders or neck, or keeping the breath high can become a habit.

But again, we rarely talk about a tense mind. We should. So we can learn to relax better. Not only to relax the mind, but the body. The body’s tension and level of relaxation is directly dependent on the level of calmness of the mind.

Because if you can’t relax your mind, the breath will rise, and you will become “top heavy” and unstable, so your root will “float”.

Understanding and controlling this relationship of mind, body and breath, is obviously especially important when you are against an opponent, friendly or not.

Whatever you do, you need to first mind the integrity of your own structure and balance, and always keep it intact. In whatever you do, how small or big the thing you do – or if you stand or move, you need to keep your balance and structural integrity first and always. Structure in Tai Chi is relaxed, it is something that needs to be taken care of by itself. The body must stack itself naturally by itself, from the ground and up, naturally and without you trying to interfere.

This is something hard, something you need to practice a lot and learn how to feel. But you will lose it all if you tense up your mind.

 

The Aging Martial Artist

At Zen's Sekai, the author recently posted his thoughts regarding his Taijiquan and Kyudo practice in the context of aging. An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.

"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." - Michelangelo

Most people assume that aging means gradual loss: less strength, less speed, less range, less ambition.

Taiji and Kyūdō quietly disagree. They do not promise to keep the body young.

They promise something more durable: integrity without excess. Aging Reveals, It Does Not Automatically Weaken.

In external systems, youth is an advantage. Speed forgives errors. Strength covers imbalance. Endurance masks inefficiency.

But aging removes these buffers. What remains is structure, timing, and honesty. Taiji and Kyūdō are not practices that compensate for aging. They are practices that age well because they remove what aging cannot support.

Taiji: When Less Effort Becomes Necessary

Wu Taiji is often misunderstood as “small” or “gentle.” In reality, it is economical. As the body ages: Excess muscular tension becomes costly Overcorrection leads to injury Forcing posture creates fatigue instead of stability

Wu standing and movement strip practice down to essentials: Vertical alignment Ground connection Continuous expansion without strain.

Nothing in Wu requires speed, depth, or amplitude. What it demands instead is accuracy. And accuracy improves with age, if ego steps aside.

Kyūdō: The Shot That Cannot Be Forced

Kyūdō offers no advantage to youth once form is learned.

Strength does not improve release. Speed does not improve timing. Desire does not improve accuracy. In fact, these often make it worse.

As practitioners age, Kyūdō naturally refines itself:

Draw becomes quieter Kai becomes deeper Hanare becomes less dramatic and more inevitable. The body learns what the mind cannot command.

This is not decline. This is distillation.

The Shared Principle: Non-Interference

Both Taiji and Kyūdō are built on the same foundation:

Remove what obstructs natural organization.

Aging supports this process by making interference expensive.

Excess tension hurts,

Poor alignment fatigues quickly,

Emotional forcing destabilizes balance. Youth can ignore these signals. Age cannot, and does not need to.

 

 

Reminiscing

At Ellis Amdur's Kogen Budo Blog, there was a recent post where the author reminisces about his early days training in Japan ... in Chinese martial arts. An excerpt is below. The full post may be read here.

 

In 1977, thanks to an introduction from Donn Draeger, I began training with Wang Shujin. Here is a video that spans from the  the early 1960’s (black-and-white) to a year before his death (color), when I met him.  We would meet at a temple near Shibuya, if I recall correctly, and in the bitter cold, try to imitate him as he went through his version of the Nanjing Synthesis taijiquan form. This form was created by Chen Pan Ling (here a portion performed by his son, Chen Yun Ching). Wang’s form was very different – he emphasized the elements of xingyiquan and baguazhang that Chen included in this form.

Wang had first started going to Japan to teach in the late 1950’s, I believe. There were several reasons for this: First of all, he was a practitioner of a syncretic religion called Yiguandao. Wang was a high-ranking member of this movement, and engaged in missionary activities, both in Taiwan and in Japan. Secondly, Wang was sponsored in his visits to Japan by Toyama Ryūsuke, one of the sons of Toyama Mitsuru, the founder of the Gen’yosha (‘Dark Ocean Society’). What people do not realize about the uyoku, the so-called Japanese right-wing is that they were intimately intertwined with religious movements, both within Japan and elsewhere. [Toyama was closely associated with the Oomoto-kyo of Deguchi Onisaburo and hence, Ueshiba Morihei of aikidō as well.] Many of men of the right were profound idealists (among the most dangerous of people) and others saw religion as a perfect avenue to move people in the direction that they wanted them to go. The early tairiku ronin (‘continental adventurers’ – agents provocateurs, spies, terrorists) were in large numbers Nichiren and Jodo Shinshu (the Nishi and Higashi Hongwanji) Buddhists, as were some of the most significant strategists who drove the invasion of Northern China.

Toyama Ryūsuke was also closely associated with Shindō Musō-ryū jo. Toyama Mitsuru sponsored various martial arts organizations, particularly from his home-town of Fukuoka, and his leading successor, Uchida Ryōhei was a practitioner of, among other things, this medium-length stick art. The Toyama family had sponsored the sponsors of Shimizu Takaji, the famous teacher of this art. Wang initially stayed at Toyama’s mansion, and through this connection, met and associated with many prominent Japanese martial artists. [NOTE: I have portrayed a lot of these men and this milieu in historical fictional form in Little Bird & The Tiger}.

There are lots of stories about Wang that, not being there, I will not waste time repeating (these often are merely, “He was the strongest man I never saw . . .”). I think, however, that it is probably hard to appreciate how formidable he was from looking at videos: he was really fat, and although he’s certainly agile in the earlier films, if one is not familiar with the purpose of his training, it all seems to be stilted, flowery or senseless. I will recount the only incident that I witnessed, for which I will give a little background.

One of Wang’s teachers was Wang Xiangzhai, the founder of dachengquan, also known as yiquan. This martial art was an attempt to distill the essence of the already pared-down pugilistic style of xingyiquan, focusing on solo training, particularly ‘post standing.’ Among Wang’s fellow students was Sawai Ken’ichi, who founded a Japanese version of this art, which he called Taikiken. Sawai was a very pugnacious man, and both he and Wang used to have training groups on the grounds of Meiji Shrine. Acquaintances of mine, some of whom studied with one or the other, told me that Sawai used to walk over to Wang’s area and berate him, saying he was wasting his time teaching baguazhang, xingyiquan and taijiquan: all he needed was dachengquan! Wang used to laugh and keep on moving. Sawai was a friend of the founder of Kyokushin Karate, Oyama Masutatsu. They had a close relationship and students of each would cross-train with the other. Thanks to this connection, some of Oyama’s students also trained with Wang Shujin. When I was practicing, one Kyokushin karate free-sparring students was among us; a very hard looking man, with a face scarred with numerous splits from kicks or punches to the face.

Wang was very ill at that time, perhaps a year before his death. He had a melanoma which had metastasized, and as one can see in the later portion of the linked video, his legs were stiff. He used to shuffle rather than walk. So, please understand, what I am about to describe was not a fight, or even a free sparring session. Wang asked the karateka to take a punch at him. He brushed it past his face – his forearm was about as big as my calf – and embraced him around the lower back, simultaneously smashing his belly into the man’s torso. It knocked all the wind out of him, and he collapsed to the ground, wheezing. [Wang thought this funny, and I recall his rumble, like an elephant digesting, that passed as his laugh]. So, what I saw was circumscribed – but lord, was it powerful.Wang was renowned for this. He would allow anyone to punch or kick him anywhere below the neck. Beyond that, he could absorb the punch and pulse it back out with such power that one risked a dislocation of the shoulder.

But I must confess – at the time, I didn’t get it. I saw how strong he still was, even while he was gravely ill. And I’d heard from others, Donn Draeger among them, what an absolute powerhouse he was when younger. But I could not see how standing around in the cold, trying to imitate him as he moved through a ninety-nine movement taijiquan form would do anything for me. [As I have written elsewhere, on a couple of occasions, I came early and saw him by himself, assiduously going over very simple movements as well as various post-standing exercises, something I was later informed was the key to his power. He practiced them four hours or more a day.]  At any rate, I didn’t get it, and after a couple of months, respectfully resigned the class, and moved on to Muay Thai.

One thing that always stuck in my mind, however, was his ability to take blows, particularly full-on kicks to the groin. And unlike some tricksters, he wasn’t cocking his pelvis forward at the moment of impact, or messing with timing so that he didn’t receive the full impact. By all the accounts I heard, he just stood there phlegmatically and took the kick, expressionless. And he did this with some of the most formidable karateka in Japan, in public demonstrations.

The Bokuto

Over at Ichijoji, the author recently had an interesting post about a bukuto (bokken) that he recently bought. 

These training swords come in all sorts of wood, shapes and sizes.

My own favorite is one that I bought for attending Kushia Sensei's kenjutsu class, where he taught his family style of swordsmanship. This specimen is made of white oak and is larger, more dense and heavier than the generic red oak ones you typicall come across. It is a weapon in it's own right.

The full post may be read here. An excerpt is below.

...

It’s probably a bit older than the others – 30 or 40 years old, I should think, judging from the colour and feel. What attracted me was the balance – it’s reasonably heavy and feels good in either one or both hands.

It is an unusual length, too, somewhere between the normal shoto (short) and long bokuto. That makes it useful both for practice and, if the need ever arose, as a weapon. Bokuto, Miyamoto Musashi notwithstanding, are not designed as weapons. They would do in a pinch, but the normal practice type are a touch too light, and are not as versatile as something like a jo, the short staff used by the riot police here.

That is not to say they are not capable of serious damage – getting whacked around the head by a piece of oak is not going to be good for anyone’s health, but their length makes them susceptible to grabbing and less effective in close quarters. 

The other interesting feature of this bokuto is that it has a squared-off tip. This is slightly unusual these days – most bokuto have kisaki (tip) resembling that of a real blade. I don’t mind this, but I certainly wouldn’t choose this design for my main practice bokuto. 

As there are more than 100 different designs of bokuto, (https://www.seidoshop.com/blogs/the-seido-blog/01-the-different-types-of-bokken-a-visit-at-the-horinouchi-workshop), it would not be surprising if among them, there was something like this. On the other hand, the tip looks quite banged about, and it is possible it got damaged somehow and was cut off.  It also looks as if it might have been cut down purposely to its current length – this is certainly not a standard length, and the tsuka (the end of the hilt) has been cut off square, without the edges being rounded at all (unlike the kissaki). 

Careful examination shows evidence of use – a few marks on the mine (spine), and some marks on the side – some of these have clearly been done with a sharp blade, more likely a practice sword than a real one.

Some koryu styles have bokuto specific to their style, (and there are differences within styles, too) but many make do with what is available. Kendo and aikido tend towards the standard types for kata work and heavier types for developing strength and body connection, but I’m sure there are variations there as well. I have tried some rather poorly balanced bokuto in the past – no doubt mass produced, probably for kendo(?), (although you get poor quality ones sold as souvenirs) and I would not be very happy if I had to use them on a regular basis. 

I have seen comments online about issues connected with weight – I never had any specific instruction on this from my teacher, but on the subject of swords, he once explained that it was good for lighter, less strong practitioners to start with heavier swords to develop the structure to be able to handle them well, and for stronger practitioners to use lighter blades, so they could develop their sensitivity for the weapon. This was under supervision, of course, and with the unspoken corollary that they would eventually progress to a sword that suited them better, if necessary. (Having used several quite heavy swords of varying balance, I can say I have benefitted, but they were not always comfortable to use).