What is Mosen?

Mosen, is traditionally a type of felt made with different kind of animal hairs and it’s said to be made with mainly from wool (not your normal type of sheep wool but rather rare types of wool), mountain goat fur, camel fur among other things.

What’s so special with Mosen is that it while it’s very light, it provides superb impact absorption, forms extremely well to your body and has excellent durability. It’s not really comparable with any modern materials in these terms, to put it simply, it’s the same as with down and feathers still being used in winter jackets and duvets, there is simply no material that is better suited for this function.

For the Bogu Futon, Mosen is the best type of felt, however, for Kote it’s also common to see Deer hair being used for the Kote Atama and futon in some cases. While Deer hair is also excellent, it still is not comparable to Mosen.

Even among Mosen there is different types of Mosen felt, there is the most precious type the ‘Kodai Mosen’ and there is a type that is Indigo-dyed and even one that comes with flower patterns.

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Kodai Mosen means “Ancient Mosen” and just as the name suggests, it’s Mosen that was made a long time ago, aging over a long period of time, making it very smooth to touch and even stronger. since the Kodai Mosen is something that was made in ancient times, the amount on the market is extremely limited and it’s getting more and more rare to see nowadays and the prices it’s sold for are very high.

Hon Mosen on the other hand means “Real Mosen”, simply put, it’s Mosen which is made using more modern methods, although it’s not as rare as Kodai Mosen, the price for it on the market is still quite high because of the precious materials used to weave it.

Of course, you could use regular felt to fill the function of Mosen in Bogu, but according to most craftsmen there is no felt that rivals the functionality of Mosen at the moment.
It has to be said though that most regular Bogu on the market, often uses regular felt for the Futon.

Here at Tozando, Kodai Mosen is something that is used for the Futon of our top-of-the-line Bogu model ‘Korin‘ which is a true piece of art in this sense and something that might gradually disappear from the Kendo world in due time. Hon Mosen is used in the “Koetsu” model which is the only Bogu which comes close to the Korin model in terms of quality. These two models are truly the pinnacle of Japanese traditional craftsmanship.