Since I’m on a role with writing Kendo reviews I thought I might as well throw up a small review for Mazkiya. I’ve been looking around for colourful tsuba and tsuru for a while – many major online kendo suppliers sell them cheaply (~$2.00 each) but the shipping cost is very prohibitive since they are based overseas. Mazkiya is based in the USA and provides colorful tsuba and tsuru for a very reasonable cost, however when you go through the website and add items to the shopping cart you quickly see that a $15.00 order seems to cost around $20.00 in shipping.

Knowing that they are based in the USA and that shipping small items to Canada shouldn’t cost that much, I contacted them at their email to see if they could provide me a better deal. They were very kind and did check to see how much shipping to Canada would be for smaller items, and it turns out I only had to pay $3.00 for shipping! Fantastic, a lot better than the $20.00.

Below are some photos I took of the goods – I ordered a bunch of tsuba and tsuru of different colors, and they threw in a complimentary Mazkiya pen (with a highlighter on the end, quite useful!). I also ordered a black tsubadome, but it unfortunately does not fit my shinai very well. I believe the tsubadome was probably meant for a kid’s shinai. However everything else looked and fit great! The price is excellent as well, each of the tsuba costs only $1.50 and the tsuru $1.00. Photos below.

Mazkiya: Kendo Product Review

This is the second part of my bogu review for E-Kendo! After around a month and a half of waiting, I finally received my huge package in the mail. To remind you, I ordered the 4mm/2mm custom bogu set with a blue do (D06) and red mune embroidery (M25) both of which came free. It did take a little while for them to order in and alter the parts to fit the measurements I provided, but once it left the Korean warehouse it reached Canada within 4-5 days.

I finally brought it to class to try it out and was very pleased! Everything seemed to fit quite well – it’s all still a little stiff but just needs to be broken into. The men is awesome – the 2mm stitching protected my head quite well. I could feel hits but they weren’t painful for the most part – there were a couple of times I would flinch and duck my head, consequently receiving a blow to the back, but that was my fault .

I cannot believe how soft the kote palms are! E-Kendo doesn’t state whether the palms are made of synthetic material or leather, but it’s very, very comfortable.

The do was gorgeous, I was worried that the blue would be too bright (and it is in my dojo, everyone has much darker/subtle dos) but I love it. If I were to order again I would probably pay the $10 to upgrade to the fake plastic bamboo on the inside. I think that would make it a little more sturdy and make it look nicer.

I believe the tare they sent was meant for a junior (I’m small and they sent me a L tare, so I can only assume!). It’s a tiny bit big on me but does what it’s supposed to. Now all I need is a zekken!

The provided tenugui is BIG (compared to my other tenugui at least!) and the fabric feels a little thicker. It has kanji printed on it that I believe says ‘Shadow Sword’. It looks quite classy.

The free bogu bag is very helpful as well, there’s lots of room inside and it easily fits a hakama/gi along with the bogu. It comes with a strap, so you can sling it on your shoulder or carry it on your side. However after lugging it around not even a block I’m already wishing it had wheels!

The total cost for everything, including conversion rates from Korean to Canadian, shipping, the price of an extra tenugui/do buttons/kote and men protector and customs came to just under $500CAN.

Pictures speak larger than words, so below is a gallery containing a bunch of photos taken of a bunch of different angles. Have fun perusing!

Bogu Photo Gallery

Surfing the net today I came across this set of bogu that some crazily skilled person painted. It probably wouldn’t last long in the dojo and I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing it (is there a louder way to scream ‘TARGET’?) but what a work of art!

Yeah this should probably be hung up in a living room somewhere. Epic.

I don’t know who painted it so if anyone recognizes this work let me know and I’ll credit them!

Speaking of bogu, my order from e-kendo arrived last week! Unfortunately I’m not currently in posession of my camera (it’ll be returned to me soon) so expect a review shortly.

It’s been a long time coming, but Threadless has finally accepted paypal as a payment method, and have joined the ranks of every other online store.

To celebrate they are offering $5 off a $30 order (type in YayPal5 at checkout) or $10 off a $50 order (type YayPal10 at checkout) until May 3rd. Head on over and pick up some shirts for the summer!

After spending WAY TOO MUCH TIME trying to figure out how to get excel (>2004) to display DIFFERENT ERROR BARS for values on the SAME SERIES I thought I’d save all you other poor souls looking for an answer by providing an easy step-by-step guide.

Alright, here’s what we have with our graph already made and our data laid out. The blue is one series and the red is another series. We want to apply error bars with different values to EACH bar in the graph.

First thing we need to do is calculate the error for each condition. You can use standard deviation (STDEV) but I need standard error for this case (STDEV/SQRT(COUNT)).

Click on the graph. Under Chart Tools go to Layout > Error Bars > More Error Bars Options…

Select the series you want to work on first.

Vertical Error Bars > Custom > Specify Value

Specify the positive error value…

By selecting the two cells that contain the error you previously calculated. The first cell will apply the error to the FIRST bar, the second cell will apply the error to the SECOND bar.

Do the same for the negative error value if needed and hit OK.

HOLY CRAP! Different error bars! Finally, I know.

Do the same thing for the other series.

And there you have it, an illustrated guide on how to make different error bars for values in the same series in excel!