Naginata: Still the Domain of Women

If you know what naginata is, your image is probably reflected in this photo:

Strong, fierce women in hakama going at it with big biff-sticks

My experiences with naginata have looked more like... this.

"Don't cry baby, Mummy will be right back after she finishes her biff session"

Although it was not originally a woman’s weapon, naginata came to be associated almost exclusively with women (warrior monks also used naginata) during the Edo era. A naginata was part of a samurai woman’s dowry, and in the militaristic pre-war period naginata was taught as part of PE classes at girls’ schools. Outside Japan naginata seems to be practiced by slightly more men than women, but in Japan it is still very much a woman-dominated sport. I recently participated in the prefectural tournament and there were only two men competing. The scarcity is reflected in the newspaper article below. Men and foreigners are pretty much as rare as one-another.

Yup, that's me, being all perceptibly foreign

The difference in atmosphere between naginata and other martial sports like kendo or karate is profound. At tournaments there are always a gaggle of small children running around.

How cute is it that this club made their t-shirts in kids' sizes as well?!

Babies are passed from one set of available arms to another. I spent about an hour last year watching a baby… I still have no idea who her mother was. It wasn’t the woman who gave her to me, or the woman I eventually passed her to when my turn came to compete.

The woman on the right is grandmother to both the national champion and six or seven other high ranking naginata ladies

These dads came along to cheer on their wives, who were both competing while pregnant. Guess they missed out on that “Asian husbands are evil” memo too.

They are total sweet-hearts with kick-arse wives and cute kids

Helping out a team member who battled through morning sickness (and a small earthquake) to win all of her matches

I’ve been an absolutely terrible team member, taking off months at a time to work on my MA, move house, and so on. I’ve never been made to feel bad about missing practice. My teacher said once “it can’t be helped in a women’s sport. Women are so much busier than men.” I thought it was an interesting point and I wonder if it’s a common stereo-type in Japan. Most of the older women I know work at least part-time, but even the ones who work full time are responsible for all the house work, as well as the community volunteer activities like neighbourhood associations. One of the women at my club is a full time teacher, PTA member and regular volunteer at international events but still has to cook a full meal for her husband every night and make sure his laundry is done. He, on the other hand, just… works. Women of her generation (much like my own mother, it certainly isn’t an exclusively Japanese phenomenon) were caught in the double-burden of job opportunities opening up for women and an expectation for women to work, without a matching expectation for men to take on more domestic work. This is not a marriage dynamic I see in any friends my own age in Japan or otherwise. Still, the point that women have more demands on their time than men means that there is less pressure than I expected to contribute to my naginata club.

Finally, naginata is great for kids. Don't you wish this had been a school sport when you were seven?!

The little one on the left was actually six, that's her big sister helping her with her helmet

Don't be fooled by the cute smiles, all three of these girls out-rank me by four belts

Of course, naginata ALSO looks like this ;)