Naginata (Japanese pole arm)

[Finny]

I always thought the odachi that the Shumpukan guys use was real cool:

[middleway]

My JJ teacher taught traditional Naginata .... cant remember which Ryuha. I had a go and remember it being super tough to handle and manipulate correctly. I had done a bunch of Iai and Kenjutsu at that point but its a whole different Ball game.

The sportative side is mainly 'kendo for women' in Japan i think. Guys do Kendo, girls do Naginata.

Cheers
Chris

[klonk]

Found this site on Japanese pole arms: http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/polearms.htm It treats the nagamaki as a subspecies or specialized form of the naginata, an idea you also see elsewhere, and points out that naginata blade size varied according to fashion. Something fairly commonly seen is a short naginata blade recycled as a wakizashi, which is certainly practical, a beefy little sword Godzilla couldn't break. A big blade could become a tachi or katana, as here. http://samuraiswords-hawaii.com/id45.html

So I neither agree nor disagree with Z. K.'s point above, since it gets into the weirdly arcane sport of Japanese weapon terminology. Nagamaki blades and naginata blades clearly share design parameters and appearance, and both are encountered trimmed down to fit in sword koshirae, which is enough confusion for me. I would interpret the matter like so, all nagamakis are naginatas in a sense, but not all naginatas are big enough for use as nagamakis.

The rest of Stein's site is interesting too. http://home.earthlink.net/~steinrl/nihonto.htm

[Muad'dib]

The confusion is probably a result of the fact that there are two sorts of nagamaki, at least that I have seen. Both have similar blades and purposes, but one has a spear haft, and one has a sword hilt. Why, dunno. You will note that the website you referred to shows a spear hafted nagamaki. It all gets messy, particularly since there is evidence that most early Japanese blades where huge, and later recycled/trimmed down to naginata/nagamaki/katana etc.

Regarding Kendo/Naginata, kendo = boys, naginata = girls, Naginata is hard to find, even in Tokyo. I actually had an easier time tracking down a traditional ryuha than I did for the sport form. Usually both boys and girls do kendo.

[klonk]

Well, I prefer a shotgun, myself. As nearly as I can translate, "Browning Miroku Citori" is Japanese for "costs a bundle."