Gensai

You’re absolutely right. That’s exactly why I personally wouldn’t use an antique blade or even a modern one with an unknown history for any kind of cutting. A blade can look flawless after a repolish, but the internal fatigue is still there, and like you said, it only takes one shock in the wrong direction to finish it. From a practitioner’s perspective, that’s the part that worries me the most: you can’t “see” the real condition of the steel. So for training I prefer modern blades made specifically for repeated stress. And to be honest, I have too much respect for blades in general even modern ones to treat them roughly or push them to their limits. Even my training swords, I handle them as if they were a Muramasa or a Masamune, lol. Nice to meet you

In koryū we don’t use antique nihontō for regular training. A blade from the Sengoku or Edo period is a historical object, and even if it is still structurally sound, it carries fatigue, old polishing cycles, and sometimes hidden flaws that you simply cannot detect without risking the blade. For daily keiko we use modern steel blades (shinken or blunt steel), made specifically for training. They are consistent, predictable, and you can stress them without worrying about damaging something that survived 300–400 years. In Europe we are also fortunate to have access to good-quality 1060 / 1095 steel blades for practice. They are not nihontō, of course, but in terms of weight, balance and general geometry they can get surprisingly close to the feeling of a traditional sword, which makes them very practical for regular training. Antique blades are handled only for study: balance, geometry, sori, niku, and the feeling of how a real sword “lives” in the hand. That part is extremely valuable for understanding the old techniques. Personally, I would never use an antique blade for tameshigiri. Cutting puts real mechanical stress on the steel, and it’s not worth the risk. For kata, however, an antique blade can be used carefully, because the movements are controlled and non-impact. But even then, it’s more about understanding the feeling of the sword than about “training” with it. This is just my personal view as a beginner practitioner and someone who is deeply interested in the culture and history of nihontō. So yes , old blades are still “usable, ” in the sense that they can be drawn, felt, and studied, but not for repetitive cutting. Modern training swords for practice, antique nihontō for understanding. Thansk a lot and nice to meet you :-)

Hello everyone, my name is Leonardo. I practice an old koryu from the Edo period with roots in the Sengoku era, and I’m here to deepen my understanding of nihonto, especially blades from the Sengoku and Muromachi periods. I’m studying balance, geometry and historical context to better understand how these swords were actually used in daily training.Don’t worry, I’m not here to ask anyone to gift me a Muramasa… 😂, even if a blade like that would get more honest training with me than crying alone in a display case.