Shinai Tsuba Notch - Flattening the Tsuba With a Saw

Shinai tsuba is round.  Place it on the ground and it rolls around when it gets bumped.  I first noticed some nito sensei with odd shaped shinai tsuba that had flat areas designed to stop this rolling.

  

I like to cut a very slight notch in the tsuba with a miter saw.  The first plastic tsuba i tried this on cut too deep.  I suggest cutting much less than you need at first.  The flat area only needs to be ~2.5 cm for a fairly significant notch, I think.  Every time I put the tsuba on, I have to properly rotate it so it point the cutting hasuji in the right direction

When I place my shinai on the ground, I prefer the blade to face downward and toward me like anyone else.  We were all originally taught to place kendo shinai and bokuto this way.  But, I wonder if many people stop caring about shinai hasuji orientation in seiza partly because it rolls around.

When I first cut the notch, I felt like I was cheating.  I thought I might be side-stepping the careful motion of balancing the shinai and preventing it from rolling away.  I quickly changed my mind.  The notch allows me to rotate and place/pick up the the shinai in the same confident way I do with bokuto.  I really don’t have to look down at the shinai ever now, another unnecessary motion reduced.

   

Disclaimer: No dojo or sensei I know openly suggests this modification for everyone.  Plastic tsuba are cheap.  Damaging one isn't all that bad.  But, your sensei or peers might not like this, especially if you do it to hardened leather tsuba like the ones in the photos above.  Like everything on this blog, do it at your own risk.