O-sensei's heavy gardening tools & weapons?
 

Out of curiosity, does someone have the specs (weights / lengths) of the heavy weighted gardening tools / suburito O-sensei apparantly had built for himself?

Re: O-sensei's heavy gardening tools & weapons?
 

don't know about O Sensei gardening stuffs, but the hoes (not the ones at the corners. should not do google search on hoes :) ) in the west have strange shapes which i don't think design by someone who knows how to hoe, the physics of the shape is all wrong. why would you want a flat surface to go into the ground?

try something like this http://tssuccess.en.made-in-china.co...-Hoe-H313.html the specs said it's around 2 lbs (1 kg), about right around 1-2 kg. the handle around 5 ft in length. swinging 1-2 kg hoe around for a whole day and you find out pretty quickly to not using just your arms. swinging 60 kg hoe around would require alot more hips :D

Re: O-sensei's heavy gardening tools & weapons?
 

Depends on how big your Suburito is, I guess :hypno:



This thread is going to spiral (dually) out of control soon.

But anyway, thanks for the pointer re: ho(es). Are there any records of *what* he had made, specifically? Shovels? Hoes? Rakes? Using a 10 lb rake is a different proposition then using a 10 lb shovel, I think.

Re: O-sensei's heavy gardening tools & weapons?
 

:D Well, speaking as someone who has begun playing around with hoes in the last few years, I find they function better when turned a little on their side.


On the other hand, my massive and impressive power makes the flat end dig into the ground pretty nicely which makes my heavy hoeing next to Boeing a little more time efficient.

...sorry for the lack of help re: OP. I will say though, that I enjoy the hard work of gardening/small-scale farming as a way of measuring power efficiency. I have to really relax to cut through the grass that grows in my little garden with the hoe I use.

Re: O-sensei's heavy gardening tools & weapons?
 

Thanks Bob, this is what your link got me:

This site has been blocked because it does not conform to the acceptable use policy.
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Illegal skills? They really guard those secrets don't they? haha, good times, anywhoo

there was a thread here discussing a bokken that Ueshiba had made out of a hoe handle. In digging around after that thread I found some images of traditional japanese hoes and they were a bit different than what we'd go buy at a store these days.

http://www.japangarden.co.uk/images/W/hoe.jpg

The one I found was similar to this one in shape, but was longer and with a slightly larger head. It was definitely vintage. The one in that pic comes in at about 1.7 lbs, so I'd probably put the vintage one at around 3-5 lbs.

As I've worked to change how I use my body, I've had good times doing yard work, gardening, etc. I don't think you need big heavy tools to get something out of it. The earth seems to allow you to make it as easy or as difficult as you want it to be.

Re: O-sensei's heavy gardening tools & weapons?
 

Hello,

strange I also have a question about O Sensei bokken :)
but I will open a new topic for that.

Otherwise, I'm not Aikido practitioner, but quite collaborate with them (suppy them) and have a lot Aikido friends :)

don't know about O Sensei, but I see in Japan sensei who work with handhold for pick mattock instead of a bokken, used like a kind of suburito

here;

http://www.qcsupply.com/corona-forge...od-handle.html
it is cheap bokken

here also with curve
http://www.applegate.co.uk/listings/...4-2356042.html

Regards,

Petar

Re: O-sensei's heavy gardening tools & weapons?
 

The more you focus on the weight, the father off the path you will get. As Sagawa aptly demonstrated; it is a gradual process to build the body to stop behaving like the "straights" outside of budo. Tyson and Arny can fling about heavy weapons, so what!!...only an idiot would pursue that type of strength,
Not everyone knows what they are doing or even looking for when it comes to budo.
So go swing dem heavy tings and tink yer a doing someting smart! :cool:

Re: O-sensei's heavy gardening tools & weapons?
 

There is some material of the founder's weapons training here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isAYqzkBTsk

Re: O-sensei's heavy gardening tools & weapons?
 

Ok, but unless I missed it, that doesn't show anything wrt the original question.

Re: O-sensei's heavy gardening tools & weapons?
 

My apologies, I misread the OP. Come to think about it, I have never heard about the founder's

Could you please, provide a reference for that?

Re: O-sensei's heavy gardening tools & weapons?
 

Hi David

I don't have it at hand at this very moment (so can't provide a page number) but Ellis discusses it in Hidden in Plain Sight. I'm sure I've read other references to it over the years, too, though those were likely on Aikiweb.

Actually, this is why I asked for specifics myself: if these things exist, they're likely on display somewhere - so someone might have seen them / hefted them around themselves.

Re: O-sensei's heavy gardening tools & weapons?
 

Thanks, FWIW in this interview ( http://www.nippon-kan.org/senseis_ar...interview.html ) Saito sensei says: "We carried iron jos to make our arms stronger..."

Re: O-sensei's heavy gardening tools & weapons?
 

You don't. You use the corner to go into the ground and the flat surface to scoop. Works fine.