I have two weapons at my disposal in the dojo. One is Chinese broadsword, a wushu-style curved sword. The other is a katana, the Japanese samurai sword. They are so different.
I picked up the katana as something my fiance and I could do together (now we barely spend our free time apart) and as something that was on sale, too good to pass up. The original plan was to take the katana form to tournament, but life happened and I didn't get the form down, much less tournament-ready. I had picked up broadsword for demo team, and was pretty much a natural with it. You have to make that sword sing. I would say steel, but the ones we use at tournament are aluminum alloy and unsharpened. They're not "real" swords, in a sense.
Broadsword is a very circular weapon. Shaolin monks train with it. It's kind of flashy and designed for close-quarters fighting. It's a very flowing weapon. It's also designed to sneak around shields and pluck out eyeballs and such.
Katana is a very linear weapon. It can be used in a circular fashion, but it's much more a slicing weapon. It's kind of a brutal style. It can slice through armor, for pete's sake. However, the style is graceful and powerful.
I'm much more a broadsword than a katana. It's making katana very challenging for me. It's slow, and I've gotten better technically with the katana but the form is just not clicking yet. I picked up the opponents of Dragon Set 1 for broadsword very quickly compared to how I am just not for katana form (I think it's Way of the Little Dragon).
In the future, I want melon hammers. It's two heavy hammers (35 lbs each or so) with round heads and it's a weapon that carries you. It's deadly. I'll wait for a few belts before I pick up those, though. Katana is enough of a challenge!
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