the luster of fine wood
Some of my experience with the wooden sticks:
My favorite boken; i.e. wooden practice sword is made of simple white oak.
Through the years it has aquired some dents along the shaft from impact, but that thing is still sturdy and lasting.
Others; the darker oaks, and other wood species have failed.
I must be forthright and say that in some instances, maintenance seem to be the fault, as the sticks exhibited dryness and therefor had become brittle.
_Not my own. I take care of them, but those belonging to other students.
The most severe clashes involved the technique of "Kaeshi," or reversing.
The timing is last moment where it is a defensive technique. You opponent has been quicker than you, or misled you, or completely surprised you, and you raise your stick to interpose it between your head or body and the rapidly approaching sword of the opponent. His strike lands on your stick which is held in a decending diagonal which intercepts and deflects his strike downward.
Now, the enthusiastic students that I have engaged with would get carried away in their zeal, and strike with such force that if you did not have your stick there your skull would most likely been fractured! Whack.
My white oak boken held up just fine.
Haveing said that, I have never tested it to destruction like you might witness in a "You Tube" demonstration whereby experimenters in theater masks will chop cinder block, bash anvils, and attempt to drive their Excaliber blade back into the stone.
Even my white oak stick will not withstand such treatment.
Other than beating logs or such, I find a good hardwood, that is maintained, to be very sturdy and reliable.
And to my eyes, the wood sticks; particularly the primitive ones, have a character that polymer, fiberglass, or metal ones do not have.
I will reserve my old wood sticks to less than Jacky Chan fights, and whomp only the hard noggins of the foolish with them.
Not ever haveing handled a CS fiberglass stick; how is the weight of one?
