by Ines Klose
A naginata weekend always has two sides: little sleep and excitement; exhaustion, but also great people coming together. That’s exactly how it was when the naginata community gathered in Leverkusen at August 8th and 9th.
Already “Part 1” of the weekend challenged us with a seminar held in the heat of summer: For one part of the group, the focus was on combat techniques. What scores points and what doesn’t? How can you score points with counter techniques? And between exercises, the mantra was always: Try it out, fight.
For the other half of the participants, the focus was more on basic striking and blocking techniques, as this part of the seminar was primarily aimed at beginners.
By the end of the seminar, everyone was pretty exhausted – but also absolutely thrilled. Especially since each of us was able to take home personalized feedback to apply to our own training.
“Part 2”: German Championship 2026
Well prepared we were ready for part 2 of the weekend: the 21st German Championship. With all the adivce in our mind we received the day before the engi pools started.
Most of the team compositions were well known – Naginata-people like to stick to their longterm engi-partner. But there were also some unusal engi-teams this year. No risk, no fun. 😉 In the end the following teams could convince the referees:
1. Ivan Kuzminski & Andreas Nicol (PostV Opladen)
2. Jonas Stock & Ines Klose (KuS Dellfeld/PSV Mainz)
3. Valentin Stahl & Marie-Luise Göbel (USC Mainz)
But there were little time for celebrating. Some water and a snack later the competitors put on their bogu to warm up for the shiai. At the shiaijo every level of expierence showed up: from newbie to member of the national team. Nevertheless some of the shiai matches were quite close – especially when the fighters who had previously advanced from their competition pools faced off. In the subsequent knockout round, the following won:
1. Ivan Kuzminski
2. Andreas Nicol
3. Marie-Luise Göbel
Fighting spirit: Nicolas Adalid Braun (PSV Mainz).
Congratulations to all of you!
The seminar and the championship would’nt have been possible with some special people. So I like to say a huge „thank you“ to our referees and instructors who traveled all the way from Belgium to be with us: David D’hose, Yolanda Vanneste, and Guillaume Dufeil.
Also I’d like to give special thanks to the many volunteers whose dedication made the seminar and competitions possible in the first place. You’re amazing!
