Ever since I was a young girl I have been fascinated by Japanese culture. If I believed in reincarnation, which I don´t, I might have imagined having been Japanese in a previous life. So it was not more chance that I watched this TV program about female samurai warriors.
I had never even heard of naginata before, but with the native hue of resolution I googled and found that there was actually a club right here in Stockholm. Then the pale cast of thought reminded me that I had slightly arthritic hands, feet demanding what is known as sensible shoes, a hip giving trouble at times, and that my 65th birthday was imminent. Wouldn´t it be optimistic bordering on the insane to take up a martial art? There was only one way to find out: by giving it a chance.
So one evening in late spring, I turned up at the dojo for a first look. I liked what I saw but met with an unexpected difficulty: I could not sit on my feet in seiza! Well, I was never one for the ballet, and apparently my ankles had stiffened since I used to do ju-jutsu years ago. I used the summer break working on them, and when training was resumed in autumn, my feet agreed to be sat upon again.
- It´s difficult, the sensei told me, and it takes ten years to get good at it.
No time to lose, then. But my first session left me rather confused, so I asked if there was any written material. Fortunately, there was. I don´t know how I would have managed without the ”Naginata Bible”. Much worse, no doubt. Coming home after training, it was most helpful to be able to look up and sort out what we had been doing. The club was small, and all levels were training together. Somehow I had expected to be part of a group of beginners, but this term I was the only novice staying the course. (A few others turned up once or twice.) According to the sensei, those who just wanted to hit people were quick to lose interest and find something else, and when the rest eventually reached the stage where you do hit each other, they tended to think that this was not what they had signed up for, and they dropped out, too.
I was firmly hooked, though. Naginata invaded my thoughts, even my dreams at night, and I pestered friends and family talking about naginata, much as I used to talk about horses when I was younger. Often, people would step back in mock fear, and somebody made a joke about us being so few; had the rest got killed? (Why do people assume that practitioners of the martial arts are the dangerous ones, when any fool out there can grab a kitchen knife and get violent?) I started practising at home with a staff I had lying around. It was really too short, but that was just as well for the sake of furniture, walls and door-posts. The lampshade in the ceiling took a few blows but was not the fragile kind. (There is this thing about me and lamps – if, for instance, there is the slightest chance of bumping your head into a lamp when rising from a table, I am likely to do so.) By now I was convinced that naginata training was good for my health, and I was ready to recommend the sport to all who wanted to improve their strength, stamina, balance and coordination. It made perfect sense to keep it up, but there was something else, something stronger, that made me go on. All through autumn, come rain or snow, my feet just kept carrying me to the dojo no matter what.
There was talk of grading in December, but I did not suppose that applied to me until the sensei told me that it did. I then intensified my home practice to ensure that I would not mix up ippon-me and nihon-me, which I had only just begun to learn. And when the day came, I stood there facing a young partner, waiting for him to start… waiting… and waiting… until it dawned upon me that he was waiting for me! I was shikake! Well, I did pass in spite of that blunder.
A few beginners joined us after Christmas. Seeing them fumbling like I used to, I realised that I had actually managed to learn a thing or two. But a new challenge lay just ahead – a winter seminar with a Japanese sensei, invited by the two Swedish clubs in Stockholm and Uppsala. There was going to be bogu training as well, and the sensei took me upstairs to the dusty attic, where we found some old stuff that I could borrow. There were no naginata kote, and the kendo ones lying around were worn out and full of holes, but they would have to do. That night we were all wearing bogu, except the one beginner present, an angel-faced kid of 13 who looked like a hobbit among orcs, but I am sure he didn´t feel that way. We were also drilled at putting bogu on and taking it off properly.
- Never put the men face down directly on the floor, we were told.
- Is it bad luck? I asked, trying to understand the underlying philosophy.
- Yes. Very bad luck.
The weekend seminar started up in Stockholm on Friday evening. If I could not get much else right, I said to myself, I could at least decorate the shomen with an ikebana. I prepared pine branches, red berries and white chrysanthemum at home, putting it all together in the locker room. Saturday and Sunday training was scheduled from ten to five and hosted by the Uppsala club at their venue. I had put my worries about bogu aside by telling myself that it would not be the end of the world if I were still struggling with the men chords while everybody else was up and fighting. But I need not have worried. There was always someone willing to give a helping hand, and one of the Uppsala girls told me that it had taken her six months to get the hang of it.
The japanese sensei took us through a lot of exercises, paying individual attention to everyone. She picked different partners to demonstrate, and suddenly she picked me. Oops, I thought! But she had not chosen me for anything complicated – we were just taking turns at striking sune. We went faster and faster until we began to laugh, and she turned to the others, saying:
- She likes this!
As we practised uchikaeshi, I found myself rather close to the wall on one side, but on the other there were people that I did not want to risk hitting. Suddenly, my naginata crashed into one of the lamps along the wall, bringing down a rain of glass splinters! I was mortified until I realised that my mishap was not the first of its kind. As we were sweeping up the splinters, someone stated that glass lampshades in a dojo was a bad idea, and I could not have agreed more.
As we put on bogu for the very last training session, I finally succeeded in putting on men unassisted. I felt rather incompetent at free sparring, however, until one of my club mates turned it into mentor sparring instead and taught me how to parry counter-attacks.
- Are you tired? she suddenly asked. Do you want a rest?
- No! I want to do this again!
The weekend had been most stimulating, and it took me days to digest the experience. Some weeks later, I began to attend Tendo-ryu training as well.
The Swedish National Championships were due in May. Our sensei encouraged everyone who could to compete in engi as a beneficial experience. Competitive by nature, I was not hard to persuade. (I told myself that I could be the ”Eddie the Eagle” of the games – remember that British ski jumper who flew about half as far as his competitors? People like that set the best in perspective.) I teamed up with one of our new recruits, a Chinese kendo girl. Our first training together was shaky, to say the least, and I wondered how on earth we were going to get ready in just two months’ time. Of course we were bound to finish last anyway, but we still wanted to do as well as we possibly could. Training was intensified, and we did have a steep learning curve. One day, the kendo girl asked if waki-gamae could really work in a fight, ”when it´s so obvious what´s coming.” The sensei assured us that it did, ”especially against kendo.”
Those of us who were not to compete in shiai concentrated on engi for the time being, but bogu was not entirely put aside. We were short of sune-ate, so when the sensei was going to order some stuff from abroad, I seized the opportunity to get a pair of my own. It seemed that I should have size L, which I found hard to believe. Never in my life had I worn ”large” anything! When they arrived, I was quite relieved to find that they fitted perfectly, and I felt like a child getting a new pair of skates for Christmas.
- Sorry! the kendo girl exclaimed, jumping backwards.
She had just failed to stop her naginata in time, touching my head ever so lightly, which did not hurt at all.
– If that should happen at the championships, I said, don´t apologize but keep going as if nothing had happened. Isn´t that right? I added in the direction of the sensei, who nodded affirmatively.
It did not happen at the championships, though. It was I who messed things up, suddenly doing the wrong form. Well, there was nothing for it but to keep going as if nothing had happened. I was quite angry with myself, however, for losing concentration.
After engi, it was time for shiai. Now I could relax and just watch and learn. Since the number of participants was not very high, men and women competed together in the same tournament, which worked out well enough.
It had been a day of great fun, and I could sum up my first year with naginata. I find a kind of beauty in the pursuit of skills that are of so little practical use; art for art´s sake. Also, it seemed to affect me in unexpected ways, influencing my thinking and making me less impatient – I had almost stopped wishing that I could buy a big bottle of patience somewhere! Learning something new is satisfactory in itself, and I was amazed at having gone from beginner to the National Championships in one year. Finishing last just meant that from then on, it could only get better. And I had made some fabulous new friends.
So, did it get better from then on? Indeed it did!
