Choosing a Katana Length

by Motoyasu

Traditionally (for the samurai anyways), the way a blade is sized for your body is to stand up straight, and hold the sword naturally and swing your arm down at your side. The blade tip should just clear the ground without touching if the length is correct (but please watch it when doing this - you don't want to be chipping off the point of a long sword).

Most modern Iaido schools recommend a slightly longer sword: when performing the resheathing action, the blade should be long enough that the point is located in the center of the mouth of the scabbard when your sword arm is fully extended and the sword held horizontally in front of you. This tends to be about 2" longer than the optimal, but what it does is force you to be consistent when resheathing the sword (you know that when your arm is straight: the sword is in the right position for resheathing. This prevents a lot of accidents and injuries when resheathing).

Hilt length should be approximately 3 palm widths or the length of your forearm from elbow to wrist joint (but unlike the Bugei suggestion, not including the length of your fist). For most people, this length should be about 11-12". Any shorter than 3 palm-widths and you don't get enough leverage, any longer and the sword becomes ill-balanced (too close to guard), prone to breakage (tang may be too short for length of hilt, additionally when combined with poor balance, vibration may be maximized at the machi, where the blade is prone to breakage. This also applies to non-Japanese swords as well) and difficult to manoeuver.

The average gunto length of 25-26" tends to be just right for the average Japanese height of 5'4" to 5'6". For caucasians, usually a 29-30" katana with a correspondingly longer hilt is required because of larger body size.

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