For kendo players looking for a well balanced, light feeling shinai for practice or tournament use, I recommend checking out Zen, a jissen-gata style shinai.

This is a regular grip, jissen-gata shinai, available online from Zen-Sankei International. 

Handmade from the best keichiku bamboo, Sankei say this is one of their most popular shinai.

It has been a slow start to 2014 for me! I attended only my third practice of the year last night!

I'm carrying a bit of a foot injury and quite a belly after the holidays, but I will be back up and running soon enough! 

I'm currently reviewing a shinai for a friend at Zen-Sankei International. (The same chap responsible for all those police shiai videos!)

I'll post up the review after a few practices with it. In the mean time why don't you check out their home page .

Sankei are a popular equipment supplier in Japan. A lot of kendo stores carry their shinai. And I have used more than a few of them since I started practicing.

You can check out their impressively full range of shinai in both mens and ladies sizes simply by clicking this link.

That's all for now, I'll be taking a trip to a new dojo on Saturday and will write my first keiko report of the new year then.

Thank you for your support!