Talk:Shinkage-ryū

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This page needs quite a few corrections. First, regarding the shinai. The shinai that Kamiizumi is said to have invented is the fukuro-shinai, which is not "strips of bamboo supported in a leather scabbard", but rather a length of bamboo split multiple times on one end, and enclosed in a leather sheath or sleeve. Also, "shinai" is by no means a pun on the negative of "to die". That would be "shinanai", and what's more the "-nai" negative wasn't in use in the 1500s. The word "shinai", while it refers to a bamboo sword and is now written with those characters, is derived from the verb "shinau" 撓う, meaning "to bend, to be supple". Originally, shinai were referred as 撓竹 "shinai-take" "bending bamboo".

Finally, Yagyu Toshinaga, in his book "Shoden Shinkage-ryu" (正伝新陰流, 1957 Shimazu Shobo) puts the time period that Kamiizumi founded Shinkage-ryu as around age 35, sometime in the 1540s. If there are no objections, I'll edit the article to reflect the above. JReyer (talk) 15:11, 30 March 2008 (UTC)