EDIT: Hmmm, perhaps I should clarify. I'll keep this short, bc I wrote a large paper on this subject and YA will only let me write so much:
To develop an intuitive aspect of sword use, requires more than just technical skill, repetition, drills, and physical conditioning. It requires the subtler and more complex psychological factors that are gained through serious, long term free-sparring. Only sparring reveals to us our inadequacies, and deficiencies and teaches us application of tactics. It is by comparing and contrasting our skills with those of others with as good a skill level as our own, otherwise, no matter how well intentioned practice drills may be, they are really just supervised "dancing" and playing, going through the movements. (movements are prearranged or random. One knows what is happening, whereas, the choice of technique in battle/sparring depends also on the opponents actions in the situation and necessitates the development of heightened perceptions and spontaneous, unconscious, reactions in order to use technique and control the distance and the timing of moves).
Classroom drills and non-contact practice is great, no wonderful, but real ability can only be gained through sparring and fighting.
And of course there is a safe way to do this. You aren't going out there and smashing bokkens into each other. Yes, you will get hit every so often, but it is far from being full contact.
Sparring is usually divided into lvls.
Semi Contact, Contact, and Full Contact.
Difference rely on protection, padding, intent, and form of training weapon.
And I'm gonna stop there before I write too much.
I agree with everyone else on here for the most part. I never trained in bokken but I am considered a professional fencer (sport and in historical terms) and I learn here in Italy, though in the summer of this year I take my training to France. There seems to be some underlying hostility about "drills vs sparring".
Both are equally important.
Drills refine technique, makes it better, and helps a-lot. Even kata. It's exceptionally important to practice through drills.
BUT
Sparring is just as important. You learned the technique and have the knowledge to execute. Sparring though is the "test" to see if you can apply what you learned successfully. How do you know exactly where you stand if you don't spar? And like the 1st guy said and others there is a safe way to spar.
To answer your question; I really can't. I never trained with a bokken. I would imagine it could be dangerous. We usually wear padding or use very good control though accidents happen. Same goes for any type of sparring I suppose.
Unless you were confusing a shinai which is a bamboo sword with an actual wooden sword, then yes, it is dangerous. And it is BOKKEN, BOKEN, or BOKUTO - not bokkan.
I have severe doubts about your friend's dojo. If she really have been getting hit hundreds of times and without any injuries, then I question the validity of her training. Bokken training is not like western fencing where the "sword" is a training instrument rather than a real sword. The skills you are training with a bokken is the very same one you would use if you were using a real sword and that means the cut has power behind it. That also means you can break bones including crushing someone's skull with the blow.
In case you do not know, the famous Japanese swordsman Miyamoto Musashi preferred using a wooden sword because his technique was so good it did not matter whether he cut his adversaries with a katana or a bokken the end result was the same - they die. And since a katana can break and costs a lot of money and a bokken is cheap and can be made from wood, he kept his katana in reserve so to speak.
Well that depends on what you are doing. My kids used wooden swords and play fought in the back yard. They too got a few bumps and bruises, nothing serious as there was no force, no skill and no intention behind their play.
The Kenjutsu school my son goes to takes fighting to a whole new level and they mean business when they train. Anything that gets past your guard will mean serious injury. A bokken is a weapon representing a sword not a stick or baseball bat (thus the techniques are very different from just merely hacking away) and a weapon if taught correctly is meant to harm no matter how conditioned you are. There are vital areas you learn to cut (not hit) that will incapacitate you on contact.
A lot of schools play fight with a bokken. It is incorrect training and in my opinion reckless behavior if your teacher does not teach you bokken skills first rather than just wailing on each other. Any sane person with some brains would have second thoughts in engaging in such a sparring match. Someone just needs to get something right by accident to cause serious harm. Unless you are in a school that actually teaches a style that uses katana (kendo, iado, iajutsu, kenjutsu) I would highly question my training and my safety in such a school. Whacking each other with a bokken/sword is just really wrong as swords are made for cutting and not hitting.
Actual sparring with bokken/bokuto has the potential to be dangerous, though the extent to which is largely determined by what kind of sparring you are really doing. A full force strike from a bokken can break bones, cause lacerations, bruising, hemorrhaging, or death. I'm going to assume that the dojo does not participate in full force sparring w/o any protective gear, because to be perfectly candid - that would not only be incredibly irresponsible but it would expose students to unnecessary risk. Generally, people "pull their cuts" if they attempt to spar with bokken so as not to significantly injure their training partner, and in the rare occasions where I have heard of this it is generally by advanced students who have EXCEPTIONAL control.
Sword arts generally used bokken for solo or paired training. Paired training usually consists of kumitachi (prearranged forms involving two individuals), or focus on specific techniques. Kumitachi is generally safe, but getting hit on occasion is not uncommon. I'm more inclined to believe that what you thought of as sparring is actually kumitachi or some form of paired drill, but that is speculative.
There is enormous value in including sparring as part of one's training, and in fact I spar all the time using proper sparring weapons and adequate protective gear. However, I fail to see the real value in unprotected bokken sparring in a modern context.
You shouldn’t be sparring with a bokken. Old school kenjutsu schools would practice with bokken, however it’s done in sequence drills/two-man kata.
Japanese swordsmanship usually emphasizes determined and focused cut and with a proper cut like that you can still maim and kill people with a bokken. If you land a hit with a bokken, but didn’t do much damage then you are causing small cuts which is going against most teachings of Japanese style of swordsmanship. If the dojo is sparring, but stopping the cut at the last minute this breeds bad habits and also it’s impossible to launch fully determined attacks this way as well. (Not to mention it’s just flat out dangerous to be sparring like that.)
So if bokken is being used for sparring avoid the place. If bokken is used for drills and kata only then you might be okay.
first lets get the weapon correct. It is a bokken, not a bokkan. All details aside it is a stick made of hard wood that resembles a katana. Is it dangerous to spar with one? Is it dangerous to spar with someone using sticks? Sure it is. Bottom line changes from situation to situation. some people have skill and control. Others only want to hit you as hard as they can. Nothing is assured.
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I had a friend who taught kendo and Iado from what he saw without protection a bamboo shinai hurts like hell and sometimes break fingers. A bokken will break bones if swung with any power and if you are not swinging a bokken with power what are you training for?
I am joining up a dojo and they do wooden bokkan sparring, but you don't have any gear to protect you from a hit.
My friend who did it said she was hit with a wooden bokkan hundreds of times during her years of training and never got any serious injury. But had years of conditioning before she even tried it, are there many dangers from doing this while under the instruction of a master, or is it reasonably safe?
