4 Benefits of Upgrading Your General Aikido Skills to Bokken

You must have known by now that Aikido is a very popular Japanese martial art that originated from the traditional samurai training. Such art form is characterised by striking, joint-locking, pinning and throwing. And yet, not too many people know that aikido is more than just those actions. Actually, it also centres on balance, clear-cut movement, body control, and most especially hand and foot coordination. If you want to improve your knowledge and practice, it is therefore imperative to upgrade your general aikido skills to bokken.

If you still are clueless, bokken is taken from the 2 words – ‘bok’ or ‘boku’ for wood and ‘ken’ for sword which means a wooden sword used during training. There are several advantages if you can master how to use a bokken, a highly essential tool for improving one’s skills in this type of martial art.

Upgrading to Bokken: 4 Benefits

Here below are the benefits you reap when you advance from general skills to bokken.

1. A deeper awareness of movements – Experts claim that any device used for training is worthy of respect, more so the bokken. If you put a mindset that the bokken is a sharp-edged sword, you would surely learn how to handle it with utmost care and respect. Consequently, it leads to mastery and sharpening of the mind, body and techniques as well.
2. Getting a good grip – To get a good amount of tightness, you need to train both hands for front hand and back hand support. Once steadiness is attained, there is never a chance that any hand device, especially the bokken, can slip from your hand by mistake. Further, your adversary cannot possibly slap the sword away from your hand if you have learned to develop a strong grasp.
3. An assurance of victory – With a secure and ready position, your victory is already assured since you cannot be budged by your enemy, the bokken secured in your hands. Further, it makes you more mindful of your strengths and weaknesses, making you more prepared to strike when needed. With that, you can anticipate the next move – your foe’s and yours.
4. Developing precision-cutting – Cutting through the air with accurate precision is an effect of proper wielding of the bokken. Clearly, a hundred percent precision is developed, making for a stable and smooth cutting movement possible. This is the kind of cutting which is not forced but rather done with proper timing. To do that, you need to maintain a sharp focus. Bokken helps sharpen both your physical and psychological capabilities.

For those who are really interested in taking their aikido bokken practice to the next level, make sure your techniques are well-defined. If you want to learn aikido bokken techniques, visit this page and sign up for a course.