Atarashii Naginata (Modern Naginata)
なぎなたThe modern sport naginata of 1955; unlike kendo it also strikes the shin, and most of its practitioners are women.
Quick Facts
JapanCharacter & Origin
Training
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
About Atarashii Naginata (Modern Naginata)
Atarashii naginata, literally the new naginata, is the modern sporting form of the Japanese glaive. It came into being in 1955, when the All Japan Naginata Federation drew elements of the classical schools together into a single standardised budo; the old schools meanwhile continue independently, and the new discipline does not replace them but stands beside them. It is practised with a training naginata whose shaft is oak and whose blade is bamboo, in protective equipment derived from kendo. The crucial difference from kendo lies precisely in the target areas: besides the head, the wrist, the torso and the thrust to the throat, the shin is also struck, which makes the glaive a weapon with a quite different threat from the sword, and which is why shin guards belong to the equipment. Competition runs in two separate disciplines. Shiai is a bout between two opponents in which a clean strike to a defined area scores. Engi is a prescribed form performed by a pair and judged by referees on precision, timing and expression. In twentieth-century Japan the naginata became the martial art most closely associated with the schooling of girls, and even today the majority of practitioners are women, although men compete as well. The discipline has spread to dozens of countries and world championships are held regularly. No individual founder is documented, since this was the work of a federation.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.