Sports Travel Today

For training purposes the wooden sword has been in use for many centuries. The Practice Wooden Sword has been used by many cultures including China, Japan, Renaissance Europe, Scotland and Rome and more recently in modern Europe and the United States.

Wooden swords are often referred to as “wasters” in reference to the fact that if damaged they can be replaced cheaply. The reason wood has become the material of choice for training swords is that high quality steel swords are more easily damaged and are expensive to replace.

The constant use of steel swords in training made them unreliable in battle due to fatigue so the ancient warrior used wooden training swords as a substitute.

Wooden Sword Practice is therefore a cheap means of training because the cost of replacing a wooden training sword is substantially less that the cost of replacing a steel sword. Another benefit is that contact with another person is less likely to cause injury when training with a wooden sword which is blunt.

Blunt steel swords are available, but they are more easily damaged, carry a higher risk of injury than a similar impact from a wooden sword which is less expensive.

Sharpened steel blades are generally not used for training purposes because of the high risk of seriously injuring, maiming or even killing someone.

Despite differences in weight and balance between a wooden practice sword and the equivalent steel sword, the user of the wooden sword will develop feel and technique making them ready to purchase their first steel sword.

Wooden Practice Swords are used these days in Western Martial Arts and some Japanese Martial Arts and many of the modern wooden swords are manufactured to replicate handling characteristics and feel of the original steel weapon.

Anyone interested in becoming involved in a Martial Art involving the use of swords will invariably start with a wooden training sword to minimize their outlay and allow for training with safety compared to the use of a genuine steel sword.