Dear Neil:
"....That's a movie approach to swordwork. You have a weapon in your hands, use it. If you end up close, you may have to use some other technique, but closing the distance on purpose to use the sword as a hanbo is just silly...."
I agree with your view. The beginning of one of our oldest hyung starts with a pommel strike as an integral part of the draw, but I don't see me closing with a person in order to use that technique. There are circumstance where the ko-dung-i (J. tsuba) may actually inter-catch (either intentionally or not) and at that point, as someone mentioned earlier the intent seems to be create enough tension whereby a person can simultaneously jump back and strike at the same time. However, we are taught a series of elbow-locks, hip-throws and sweeps for such circumstances but that is in the kum-bup side of the tradition. I have never seen the Kumdo people use such methods. As a matter of fact, as I think of it now, our polearm/staff methods have techniques for close-in grappling, but I don't think I have even seen such maneuvers in kata for the naginata. I guess what I am hearing is that in Kendo such material exists but it is used very sparingly, yes? I would suppose that the kata are also devoid of such maneuvers as well, or do they just tuck it away a bit better? Thoughts?
BTW: I had heard that the headgear (mori) and chestguard (hari) can be used for a choke of sorts, but nobody mentioned more direct choking techniques. I am assuming that these are completely ruled out, yes?
Best Wishes,
Bruce