Set of 2 Foam Padded Training Swords Shinai Bokken New

I bought these to use with my 11 y/o boy. We have had them for a few months and they have had at least 10 hours of total use and are still in perfect shape. We are not gentle with them, but are careful to only hit the other sword or our bodies...not walls, couch, counters, etc. They are very tough and I would recommend them to anyone. We have a lot of fun with them and it is a great way to burn energy.*******EDIT 5+ Years after my first purchase and my 5 star review. My original swords are still in good shape, but I now have a step-son who wanted to join us when we played. I purchased another set. It arrived quickly and looked exactly like the first set. We started playing with them and the handle of one of the new swords cracked and is no longer usable. I wrote the vendor and got a form letter with various cut and paste responses (i.e. we are not responsible for cosmetic problems). It was not cosmetic, the handle broke.All I wanted was them to send me a replacement. Instead, I felt like I fell down a well in to a bureaucratic hell.Will not do business with this company again.

These swords are tons of fun! I live in a dorm with 3 other guys and we would get tired of playing video games and such so we bought some of these swords for screwing around. Soft enough to not get mad if you get hit in the face, but stiff enough to give a little smack. This is closed cell foam, with a nice rubbery coating. Looks like they might break after heavy use, but if you are careful and don't step on them, they should last a long while.

I bought two of these for play fighting with 8 & 10Yr old kids. Does the job for pretend sword fight, can take moderate impacts well. The wood on one of the handles were split and did not look sturdy, yet they have not broken so far after 3 sessions of battle. Would not attempt to swing these at full force as they don't feel like they will hold together after full impact. Still can get a good whack with 75% effort.

Not terrible for the money, and we are getting some pretty good practice. It still might be better to look into a solid core training bokken if you are serious, though. We had to dissect ours and use pvc to strengthen the core. Still, not bad for young ones or if you don't mind modifying your own in order to save a few bucks.

These are awful for anyone trying to seriosly spare with these. I didnt even get the chance to spare with these as the force of swinging it around a little, after getting it out of the box, was enough to snap the hilt from the sword. Upon annyalizing the debries i realized the the inside of the sword which continues down into the wooden hilt was made of weak pvc. To add on to this the ver yway the hilt was attched to the pvc was by a nail which in itself cracked the hilt and pvc making it clear it would not last long. I wanted to then see if the second sword would break with one good swing and low and behold with one good swing it snapped too. This would only be a good product for kids under 7 as they may not be strong enough to ruin the sword so quickly and still could pay with it.

I purchased a set of wooden bokkens and found them to be too heavy to spar with my 5 year old son and a little dangerous. The wooden bokkens as I am learning are more for technique and show. These foam-covered bokkens are perfect! They are lightweight, the handles are narrow for his hands, yet big enough for adults, and the foam padding protects against missed blocks and wild swings! A great tool for the young learner in this type of activity. A very good introductory bokken!

I purchased the set of two of these a bit over a month ago. They were used once a week and one broke the fifth day it was used. The wood handle is very comfortable, but the inner pvc pipe is glued onto the top of the grip, and that is where the "tang" broke. The item can probably be repaired by replacing the pvc inner pipe with a wooden dowel. The weight is good, but the construction is faulty. So, nice idea, but poorly executed.

OMG! This crappy item broke at tang in less than 20 minutes out of box. The sad thing is that I didn't even hit ANYTHING. All I did was Suburi practice, rapidly swinging the sword up and down in Kendo form. The inner PVC pipe is thin and extremely fragile and I can't even imagine how easy this thing can be broken if you actually hit something, like your opponent's body for example. If you want to buy them to play with your 5 years old, maybe they hold up for a while, but anything beyond that, not recommended. If you want to practice sword by any means, I suggest that you buy actual Japanese bamboo Shinai. They are strong and not very dangerous.