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Liam Cognet
22nd April 2004, 01:59
I am looking for info on matches where a naginata is used against a boken (usually a woman has the naginata and a man has the boken).

How do these matches work? Proceedure? Safety equipmant? How 'free' is the combat?

Liam (Shinto Ryu Kenjutsu)

Earl Hartman
22nd April 2004, 02:05
I don't know about bokken, but I have seen a number of matches where a person with a modern naginata with a bamboo blade is pitted against a person with a kendo shinai.

The matches I have seen are conducted under kendo rules with the exception that the area from the knee to the ankle is a legitimate target on both sides, as it is in naginata vs. naginata (this area is off limits in kendo).

Of course, both combatants wear standard kendo protective equipment, with the addition of shinguards (suneate), which are standard in naginata.

In most matches I have seen, the kendo person was defeated, since most kendo practitoners have no idea how to protect their legs. However, a kendo person with experience against naginata is not so easily taken.

Steve_Himebaugh
22nd April 2004, 03:08
Earl:

Can you describe the tactics/strategy the kendo person uses to protect their legs?

Steve Himebaugh

Bruce Mitchell
22nd April 2004, 05:38
Greetings,
If you surf on over to the San Francisco Kendo Dojo site they currently have some pictures of isshu-jiai (kendo vs. naginata) on their photo album page (I'm the naginata-swinging chap with the white keiko-gi).

Hartman sensei is correct that it is very hard for the kendoka unless he has prior experience in isshu-jiai. So I can't say that I have ever seen what I would call a "strategy" to protect the legs. Ogawa Sensei did tell his students afterwads that they should enter in gedan-no-kamae.

Several kendoka have also told me that they fact that the naginata exponent can mochikae (change en garde from one side of the body to the other {AJNF Sports V Course, Naginata. trans. Alex Bennet. p.103})
adds to the difficulty of the match almost as much as having the sune as an added target.

Tanaka Sensei has told me stories about Mitamura Chiyo Sensei taking on lots of kendoka in the past, before the development of the bambo ha-bu, so they just used an oak naginata padded with leather. Apparenty quite painful.

Earl Hartman
22nd April 2004, 06:03
Bruce:

You can dispense with the "Sensei" stuff. I have a teaching credential in kyudo but not in kendo.

Anyway, in the match I saw, the successful kendoka defeated his oppponent by entering with a gedan-type guard and staying slightly out of range of the naginata. He also kept a very narrow, light-footed stance so that he could hop on his back foot and lift his leading leg up in the air if he thought the naginata-wielder was going for his shin (easily the favorite target in naginata, sort of like the kote in kendo).

His winning technique was as follows: he baited his opponent by offering his leg, and when she went for it, he lifted up his leg and the naginata blade passed under it. She whiffed completely, and, being overcommitted to the strike, was unbalanced with the naginata off to one side, leaving her completely open. Without hesitating, the kendo man launched himself forward like a rocket and nailed her with the prettiest men I think I have ever seen in my life, considering the distance he had to travel. It was truly spectacular, like a standing long jump with a sword or a fleche in Western fencing.

All the other kendo guys would square off against the naginata and promptly get their legs cut out from under them. You know, like "Yaahhhhh!!!.....Oops. How did that happen? OK, next point... Yaaahhhh!!!...Damn! "

Kind of amusing to watch, actually.

The funniest isshu jiai I ever saw was kendo against kusarigama, though. After twirling the chain around over his head for a bit while staying out of the kendo man's range, the kusarigama guy faked the kendo guy's guard up and nailed him right in the guts, BAMM!!, with the weighted end of the chain, a beautiful clean strike that was impossible not to see. The judges, never having seen such a thing before, had no idea how to judge it, and the flags didn't even budge.

He wuz robbed.

Eric Montes
22nd April 2004, 07:27
Liam,


I am looking for info on matches where a naginata is used against a boken (usually a woman has the naginata and a man has the boken).
There are many koryu that have kata where one person uses a naginata and the other uses a bokken. Some Examples:

Tendo Ryu
Katori Shinto Ryu
Toda-ha Buko Ryu
Jikishinkage Ryu

All of these are kata based. To the best of my knowledge, Tendo Ryu is the only that uses kote in practice.


How do these matches work? Proceedure? Safety equipmant? How 'free' is the combat?
Participants in Isshu-jiai will basically use the same equipment that they normally use. with the exception of the kendo person will add sune-ate to protect his/her legs.

One of the best isshu-jiai matches I saw was about five years ago at the Western Japan Championships. The Naginata practitioner was in a HUGE Jodan, stepped back once and came down into a dead-on sune strike. The timing was just beautiful.

Isshu-jiai is a lot of fun. forces you to re-evaluate maai rather drastically.

Eric

R A Sosnowski
22nd April 2004, 14:49
Gents,

One of the more interesting examples of Isshu Jiai that I have seen is Nito vs. Naginata. Having two shinai, analogous to the Daisho, facilitates getting inside of the effective range of the Naginata.

I have only seen one good match of this type (unfortunately) and a number of poor matches due to the lack of skills on the part of the Nito Kendo-ka.

Bruce Mitchell
22nd April 2004, 19:03
Hi Ray,
Naginata vs. nito sounds pretty interesting, I would love to experience that. So how did the nito weilding kendoka fare?

Earl, great story about the kusarigama isshu jiai! Sorry about being, perhaps, overly formal, but in my book you merit the title sensei for the consitsantly high quality of your writing (especially since I often learn things from what you have to say), as well as your accomplishments in kyudo.

Tanaka sensei has commented several times that she see's the one handed tsuki (sorry, I don't do kendo so I don't know the right term, and I don't have my kendo dictionary handy) as being very effective in isshu jiai. I once had a kendoka get a really nice men off of me as we seperated from tsuba-zarei. I also remember a guy getting a nice solid do on me in one match, and to be honest I'm not really sure how he got through, so kudo's to him.

Earl Hartman
22nd April 2004, 22:26
Bruce, the term for one-handed thrust in kendo is kata-te zuki; the two handed thrust is moro-te zuki.

I knew a guy in Japan who could nail a target the size of a quarter from about 6 feet with a kata-te zuki. He was built like a cast-iron steam boiler and had forearms like Popeye. A really frightening man.

glad2bhere
23rd April 2004, 13:09
Dear Earl:

"......His winning technique was as follows: he baited his opponent by offering his leg, and when she went for it, he lifted up his leg and the naginata blade passed under it. She whiffed completely, and, being overcommitted to the strike, was unbalanced with the naginata off to one side, leaving her completely open. Without hesitating, the kendo man launched himself forward like a rocket and nailed her with the prettiest men I think I have ever seen in my life, considering the distance he had to travel. It was truly spectacular, like a standing long jump with a sword or a fleche in Western fencing....."

In Korean Kum Bup this tactic is one of the most basic drills and is seen repeatedly in the Hyung. Oddly enough, many of the Kumdo students where I train never seem to get the idea s they always view themselves as dealing with an attacker also armed with a sword. It seems that their assumption is that a strike to the leg with a sword would not only expose the attacking swordsman to the head strike but that it would be "uncouth" to strike to a persons' legs. The result is that this tactic is not practiced with any real ardor. Too bad really. Thanks for your post.

Best Wishes,

Bruce

R A Sosnowski
23rd April 2004, 14:30
Hi Bruce,


Originally posted by Bruce Mitchell
Naginata vs. nito sounds pretty interesting, I would love to experience that. So how did the nito weilding kendoka fare?

[SNIP]


The Nito Kendo-ka was also experienced in Isshu Jiai. He used that experience to his advantage. Whereas inexperienced Kendoka are stymied by the range of the naginata, this guy could penetrate that to get inside.

Instead of the usual lopsided affair, this was much more of a give-and-take. To my inexperienced eye at that time, it looked like a fairly even match - it was a wonderful match to watch.

BR,

Ting Chuan
23rd April 2004, 20:43
Hi,
I was reading this thread and had a question about the match between the two individuals with the shinai/ kursarigama-


The funniest isshu jiai I ever saw was kendo against kusarigama, though. After twirling the chain around over his head for a bit while staying out of the kendo man's range, the kusarigama guy faked the kendo guy's guard up and nailed him right in the guts, BAMM!!, with the weighted end of the chain, a beautiful clean strike that was impossible not to see

I am not familiar at all with kendo and have only seen one kendo match on video, both people in it were wearing the protective equipment and were using the bamboo shinai.
In the above mentioned quote, the guy with the kurisarigama was using a weighted chain.
How exacly does that work? I mean what are the regulations for using weapons in a match-up like that? Was the indiviual that was using the kursarigama using a training weapon,(a wooden shaft and sickle with a weighted chain?) or was it an actual kursarigama?
Again if it sounds like a dumb question, i am sorry. I'm not at all familiar with kendo, and just had a passing interest is all.
Thanks in advance.

Rob Acox

pcnorton
25th April 2004, 18:10
Great pictures. I tried to click on the one of you and your daughter to enlarge it. Do you have a copy of that one?

Also your kote seem smallish. Are those the ones I saw at your house.



Paul

Bruce Mitchell
26th April 2004, 03:10
Hi Paul,
No, I'm afraid I don't have any copies of those pictures, I only came across them myself by accident.
Those are the same kote that you saw at my place a few years back. It could be that I'm just getting smaller.

Earl Hartman
26th April 2004, 22:08
Rob:

It was a training weapon.

pcnorton
27th April 2004, 02:30
Originally posted by Bruce Mitchell
Hi Paul,
No, I'm afraid I don't have any copies of those pictures, I only came across them myself by accident.
Those are the same kote that you saw at my place a few years back. It could be that I'm just getting smaller.

I mean small compared to the kendo ones.


Paul

Bruce Mitchell
27th April 2004, 19:53
Hi Paul,
Naginata kote are generally smaller than kendo kote. In using the naginata you need to have more flexibility in the glove (hence the bifurcated glove), any more padding and it would be hard to move the hands properly. The two light pieces of bambo that make up the naginata ha-bu (blade) have nothing on the four thicker, wider staves of a kendo shinai, so we really don't need as much padding. Also, compared to kendo, the kote is attacked much less frequently.