Heavy training swords

Once upon a time I read about knights of olde practicing with weapons specifically made to be 3 times the weight of their actual weapon. If they had a 7lb sword, a 21 lb practice sword was made. This obviously has benefits in building strength, control and agility.

Right now in tkd, hapkido and judo I am learning stick, knife, cane and sword fighting which, according to our art, function under nearly the same principles of motion. I currently have a real sword weighing somewhere in the realm of 9lbs and a bokken of similar (nearly identical) size and structure. But it lacks the weight of the carbon steel and is only 4lbs. This lack is clearly shown in my satisfactory handling of the practice sword, but less than savvy handling of the real sword. Is a heavier practice sword needed for development strength and control? And if so, could someone direct me to a place where I could get a heavier bokken?

 

The practice heavy method is generally a good idea. There are two issues with it.
1. You are more prone to injure shoulder joints... so be careful... and with heavier practice weapons train slower.
2. When you move back to a lighter weapon, you may find that you aren't ready for the speed difference. It is moving too fast for your trained handling capabilities.

While I spend 90% of my weapon time with the cane; 8% with dan bong; and the remaining 2% translating to sword (bokken typically)...
I train heavy 80% of the time and then spend 20% of my time on full (maximum) speed control. It is in the full speed that I tend to really push limits to the lose control point. Make sure you keep a really clear radius when you do this.

 

What do you use to train heavy with and where can I find it?

 

To me, heavy is solid hickory vs... walnut, cherry, etc... other lighter woods, or light high tensile metals.
When you mentioned 3X weight... I don't know how you would do that short of duct tape and lead weight.

 

fill plumber pipe with sand and tighten it up with end caps ... thats heavy and lots of kinetic energy ... I am planning to make one someday and finish it up with paracord grips

 

It's all good. The heavier weapon probably strengthens the muscles used in your motion. Increased endurance might be a result as well. The other side of the coin is the world of the warrior - they only train with the specific weapon(s) they use all the time.

 

For heavy. If available see what a department store is throwing away in the form of heavy displays. When I worked LP at Burlington Coat Factory, I was able to get to flat (7/8 of a inch) pieces of solid steel with a heavy paint/seal. They were parts from the lateral supports. The 5' one weights about 22lbs, the 2.5' one is about 11lbs. They are a bit wide, which helps with grip strength. After slow drill with those. I go to my old 440 POS Katana replica I've had since I was a kid. From there I go to Bloodwind, my folded blade. I find after bouncing weight & sizes, control begins to self adjust as soon as you pick up any blade.
I do the same with other weapons.

 

For the medieval combat that I do, I alternate between my combat blade 3kg or about 7 lbs and my bokken which is made from red oak and roughly the same weight. For me control is paramount as a mistake with the combat blade can prove dangerous to say the least. As part of the training I do a lot of isometric exercises, like holding the combat blade horizontally at shoulder height with an extended arm - both to the front and sides and both arms. Another is moving the blade with just the wrist.

Its about getting to know your blade.

 

This is called a power club. They range in weight from 2kg, going up incrementally to 4kg, 6kg, 8kg, 10kg and 15kg, thru to 20kg, which is what is shown above.

They have been adapted from Indian wrestling equipment and have had a kettlebell like program adapted to them. Should be easy enough though to implement your own training techniques to them, just do your ordinary sword form practice. Of course these are going to be very top heavy and not balanced at all, but the gains in wrist and forearm strength would far out way the cons.
Making your own might be the cheaper option though and there's plenty of vids on youtube on how to do that.

Or you could just do what the Japanese do and carve a seriously big fricken heavy bokken yourself

In all seriousness though, they're called suburito in Japan.

And they come in all different weights and sizes too...

But for how much they charge online for a heavy one, $110 to $130 plus shipping.....I'd seriously go to a lumber yard and buy myself a 100mm or 4" square post of Jarrah, Red Oak, or what ever decent heavy hard wood is available where you live....and get oldschool Musashi on that bad boy, carve it myself. Might not be the prettiest, but if it works...

 

Swords are great, I was very lucky once to use a Katana from a true Japanese Master, I can't remember his name but the experience was something that can't be described in words