Why No Sparring with Katana?

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.

One of the comments that we receive the most on our YouTube channel, Let’s ask Seki Sensei, is, “Why don’t you ever spar with katana?” and “You have to try this at full speed with an unwilling opponent.”

In our Ryuha style Asayama Ichiden Ryu, we spar with Fukuro-shinai, which are soft bamboo swords. However, as most people realize, most Ryuha styles that train iaijutsu/kenjutsu never train to spar but only practice the Kata forms. The closest thing to actual fighting with katana is Kendo, but the swords are straight and very light compared to the actual katana. 

Why do we hardly ever train sparring with katana? From my personal experience and studying, I’ve come to these conclusions.

1. Sparring in armor isn’t realistic, either
2. Samurai didn’t train iaijutsu/kenjutsu for actual fighting
3. Drawing your katana meant death

First of all, sparring with a real katana, or even with the zinc alloy Iaitō is very dangerous. But if you wear full armor to make it safe, that’s not realistic either. Wearing such protection steals the tension of an actual fight, which means it will just become a “smacking each other with steel sticks” fight. If you want it to be realistic, you must fight in a regular kimono or training gear. Still, if you had a real katana in your hands and someone was pointing theirs toward you, you wouldn’t be able to move like you can with protection.

Second, even the samurai in the past didn’t train iaijutsu/kenjutsu for actual fighting. These Kata forms for training katana martial arts were born because the Edo period (1603~1868) when they developed was so peaceful. There were hardly any wars for about 265 years, and the social system was set so strictly that people were perfectly kept in their place by their class and where they lived. Even in such a peaceful world, the samurai didn’t want to forget how to use a real katana, so they created these forms to learn and carry on the katana skills. You don’t want to become a high-ranking samurai who always acts big but doesn’t even know how to draw and sheath, right? Kendo was born to train the guts and spirit to fight with the katana. In kendo, you wear protective gear and fight with shinai (bamboo swords), so you do not get hurt. This is why it was allowed to be practiced even in the peaceful Edo period.

Third, for the samurai in the past, just showing a few inches of your blade was a huge crime unless you did it for a good reason. If two samurai fought each other, the person who is guilty for the fight was the one who showed his blade first, regardless of who actually won or lost. In other words, the only time a samurai would draw his katana, his soul, was when he was fighting for something he had to protect, even if it meant his own life. A person who pulls out his katana and wields it without much meaning is a coward who only resorts to violence. Such a person has no dignity as a samurai. Because of this mindset in the Edo period, most Ryuha styles did not consider sparring with a katana as part of their training.

But again, please understand that this is only my personal view. I encourage anyone who wants to wear protective gear and spar with a katana to do so, and there are some things that can only be learned through that. And moreover, in modern Budo, we don’t actually use swords to fight anyone, so I think each person should face Budo the way he or she wants to. Please let us know what you think in the comments section.