Hello everyone. Thank you for reading this article. I’m Shogo from Let’s ask Shogo, the interpreter of the online lessons and owner of this website.

Many people admire the dual katana fighting style. It’s one of the reasons why Miyamoto Musashi is so popular. But have you ever wondered why two-katana-style fighting is always done with one long katana and one short katana? Why would the samurai never use two long katana or two short katana to fight?

The reason is actually quite simple. It’s because the samurai would never carry two katana of the same length. By law, the samurai of the Edo period would always carry the longer Uchi-katana and shorter Wakizashi. So if they were to ever use two katana, it would evidently be these two katana. Even if it has nothing to do with the law, you could also mention that the combat advantages of having two weapons of the same length are not that high. If using two katana of the same length was really strong, there would definitely have been more Ryuha that would have used that fighting style.

Lastly, another fact we must understand is that the two-katana-style fighting itself is not so realistic. Even the famous Miyamoto Musashi, who created a Ryuha style that teaches the two-katana-style fighting, never actually fought with two swords in any of the duals he fought. Many Ryuha have two katana techniques, but their main purpose is to develop technical skills further by being able to perform even the more difficult two katana techniques. 

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