by Eduardo Brito – NOTE: This article has more than 1600 words. This is the tl;dr version of it.
Naginata, as a form of budô, is a way to develop oneself and, by extension, to improve society. For people outside our community (and some inside it) the value of Naginata as a self development tool is, sometimes, not really understood or even appreciated.
I won’t claim any overall understanding of Naginata nor of these philosophical and sociological questions. I will merely be sharing my personal experience and thoughts in this article based on what I’ve understood from practiting Naginata, especially during a worldwide pandemic, during these last two years.
As human beings, changes, especially sudden ones, tend to be met with resistance. It’s very hard to maintain composure when things change yet it’s that very same capability of maintaining your composure, physical and mental, that makes us capable of handling these situations. These disturbances in our life, in my understanding, are what are collectively called in budô as shikai – the 4 sicknesses of the mind.
This is true whether the thing that’s overwhelming us is an opponent in shiai or a worldwide pandemic.
To be fair, Naginata is a subset of what we experience and have to deal with in our daily lives. It is an abstraction for life. This is a very good thing. When you take out everything that is unneeded, you can focus on the essentials. Naginata is sort of an Occam’s razor of life: as simple as it can be but not simpler than that.
Being a smaller subset, it allows us to better understand our reactions, in a controlled environment and in a safe space. The more we do Naginata in the restrictions of the framework of Naginata, the more we can try out and understand ourselves.
I believe this is a big part of why kihon is so important in Naginata. Everyone and anyone can strike another person with a big stick, without putting too much effort or thinking much about it but, when doing Naginata, at least in my way of thinking about it (and actually putting it into practice), it is much more than swinging sticks around and beating each other up.
When doing Naginata, you need to understand what is essential to the technique and remove all the extraneous movements that make your technique inefficient, innacurate, slower, and so on. Even when you do understand what is wrong with your technique, you still need to practice enough to actually be able to do it. Naginata is not only about understanding things with your mind but to actually be able to put your understandings into motion and reality.
When you then try to apply the basics in a “real” situation, you will then see that you will need to adapt your technique to the situation in front of you. Being able to maneuver your naginata through the use of mochikae waza (switching the stance) and controlling the distance using kurikomi (shortening) and kuridashi (lengthning) of the weapon itself is also essential. From the basics, you learn how to adapt into the situations you have to face. Not having a “stuck” mind but instead flowing with the situation becomes second nature.
It is also why I believe shiai is very important as well. How can you have feedback on what you need to improve, both in technique and in spirit? If you strike someone, how do you know if it is/was a good strike? Can you adapt to your opponent? How do you react? How does he react?
People with big egos will always believe that what they did was good; people that are modest will always think they could’ve done better and that they were not good enough. The shinpan are the best feedback you can get.
Even if you believe they made a mistake, you have to accept the consequences of their decisions, be them good or bad, learn from it and continue. I don’t really believe the “you don’t learn anything from a win”. You can, in fact, learn from winning, losing, from everything you do. It’s the path, not the destination.
The same happens in everyday life. It’s not other people’s decisions that make you what you are; you are what you are from your actions/reactions to those decisions and consequences.
For these last few years we have seen many things happening with the pandemic, with all the restrictions, lockdowns and so on. Many of these things are completely out of our control. Some people tried to gain some semblance of control by exercising the power over things they can control; excessive buying of toilpaper was one, not wearing masks was another… In both, people don’t really consider what’s around them and only think about themselves.
I do believe that for Naginata practitioners, and budô pracitioners in general, we should strive to do what’s best not only for us but for the society around us. Not putting people into unnecessary danger is one such thing. Considering our actions in the presence of others is essential. That is also why Rei, the etiquette, is so important in Naginata…
When in shiai kyougi (fighting match/contest), we are fighting not only our opponent but also ourselves, in a certain way, but we still have/need to understand the other person. We talk with each other by crossing blades.
In engi kyougi (forms/kata contest) we are also trying our best to win[^1] but we are working together as a team with another person, trying to get the best out of each other. For us to achieve our best results, we must understand each other not only in that moment but in the many moments before that, in the dojo, practicing with our peers.
That was one thing that has been really hard during these last two years. Many of us had no way of practicing in the same room with other people but still, thanks to the advancements of science and technology, we were able to practice with other people and support each other through all of this.
The pandemic was and is a very difficult situation for everyone[^2] but it was and is a change that made many of us reassess what’s important in life. For me, the Naginata community and the support of others was very important. Although I have failed in many things during this pandemic, be it with my family, friends and myself and my own mental and physical health, I was able to endure a very big part of it because of the support of this community/society around me.
Although we may know what we need to improve in ourselves and our Naginata, or life, actually doing it is very hard. We will fail and continue failing for a long time. Do not fear failure as it is natural but do try to overcome it, not only by yourself, but with the help of your community and Naginata is a very big community.
When failing, do try to understand why you’re failing and ask the help of other people to try to understand why you are failing. There is no shame in asking for help. There is also no shame in failing. There should not be shame in anything we do. We should be compassionate enough with each other to overcome things. This is true in the dojo with your mates and teacher but I do think this extends to everything in life.
Now that we are able to connect with each other again, we should do it and we should do it in better ways than what we were able to do before the pandemic. Ichi go ichi e, one time one meeting, never became as relevant as it is now after the pandemic. Please go to your dojo and try to meet up with other people to keep on practicing, evolving and taking the opportunity to connect with other people at a deeper level.
My first draft of this article was much more connected to the technicalities of Naginata and online practice. However, after having written a big part of that article, I realized that what I learned the most about Naginata was different.
Yes, I do believe I learned technical things during these years of the pandemic, but I think the most important things I learned through the practice of Naginata go way beyond the technical level, although I couldn’t have gotten to those things without the physical practice of Naginata itself. Personally, for me, just thinking about things does not work. I need to put my hands into it and Naginata provides me a way to shape my body and mind.
Even with my declining health, I do hope that I still have many years of Naginata practice in me and that, even while my body changes, I will find new ways to adjust my technique and self and to continue moving along the way.
As usual, I hope to see you all throughout the year, whether in person or through the webcam.
Please continue the good fight. Ganbatte kudasai~!
Now the tl;dr version.
tl;dr version – Naginata is an abstraction for life. The way we deal with people in Naginata is the way we deal with people in real life. These last two years were hard. We’re going into a third year of a worldwide pandemic. We need to understand ourselves and others. Not everyone has the same goals. The practice of Naginata helps with this. Humans fail all the time. Accepting failure and continuing in the way is the way, not the result.
[^1]: Although budô is not about winning, I do believe that being able to understand what it takes to take a win is an essential part of the Naginata way. Although this is a Sumo video I do appreciate this understanding of achieving your goals through shiai.
[^2]: Many people have lost their lives during these last years, be it in a direct way from COVID and the corona virus, be it from the consequences of the isolation the virus brought upon us. Everybody was fighting for themselves and sometimes people lost that fight. Please help out other people whenever you can.