Women and Nito Ryu

[kendo_chick]

Hello everyone!

Just a question...

Has anyone ever heard of a woman doing Nito Ryu? I have never and I was wondering if it would even be allowed? Or if it would be "frowned upon".

Thanks!

Crystal

[alexpollijr]

What do you mean 'be allowed'? It's in the rules, there no reason why man could and woman could not. If it was to be so, what would be of that number of undies burned in public during the suffragism?

I saw very few nito kendoka to this day, all male. I think that woman stick to chudan because it does not require as much muscular strenght as Jodan and Nito require, since in both cases you'll be holding the sword with one hand only.It requires both wrist and arm/forearm/shoulder muscles - not a very desirable thing for the majority of girls I've met so far, excluding body builders and the kind :D

But if you want to, why not?

[lewis]

If it interests you, there is no reason you shouldn't try it. And don't let Alex put you off. If you enjoy it, the strength of arm eventually catch up to your strength of spirit. If, indeed, it is lacking the first place.

[mingshi]

"All Japan Student Kendo Fed. lift the ban of "Nito" on 19th Oct 1991. From post WWII to 1991, no student can go Nito in a Shiai. On 20th May 95, in the 27th Kanto Ladies' Student Kendo Taikai, there was this Nito girl..... Otozu Keiko, Sandan from Kokushikan University. The following day she was on the newspaper (Maichi Shinbun p.18)!!

There're different "weight requirement" of Tachi/Kodachi for female Nito players. Tachi =400g+ (man=425g+), Kodachi=250g-280g (man=280g-300g).

**well, the above information is from a Japanese thesis on Nito, by Prof. Higashi Kenichi....
http://www1.ocn.ne.jp/~masaki-o/thesis4.html

[cklin]

mingshi -- where the heck do you dig up these links?!

[qpuppy]

hmmm....

Heya guys... just wondering......
Does this site have an english version??....
I cant read Japanese.....:(

[mingshi]

cklin,

Just do a few searches with the correct wordings in Yahoo Japan. (of course use Kanji) hehehe

I guess that's one of the site from a lengthy list of Bugei Information... which I found a while ago:

http://www.hoops.ne.jp/~izayohi/bugei.html

Yes, Japanese again. But some of them have funny pictures! If you want some specific information I may be able to find for you.

~~~~~Oops. Rambled thread. Sorry.

[olaf]

Women playing nito....and I thought women playing jodan were scary enough.

[reicheru]

Check out the following website for translations:

http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Obviously not perfect, but you can usually get at least some idea of what the original said.

Crystal -- good luck if you decide to pursue nito, and let us know how it goes!

Rachel

[kendo_chick]

Rachel --- Thanks for the luck. I'm not going to start for a while, at least not until I'm nidan or above.

There is only one problem with babelfish, you can't translate characters. I"m in process of finding a program that will translate characters for me. I know I used to have one.

[ben]

Can people refrain from calling it "Nito-Ryu". It's hardly even a branch of ZNKR kendo, let alone a school (ryu) in it's own right. The use of the word ryu then leads some people to thinking it has something to do with Musashi's Niten-Ryu, which Hyaku will tell you doesn't mean "two-sword school" either.

Nito kendo or itto kendo.

b

[kendokamax]

ya but nito ryu sounds cool
nito kendo doesn't sound too cool to me

if you really want to make a name for it that would give it justice..

nito shinaido
itto shinaido

happy kendo!

[alexpollijr]

The 'rules of the game' call it Nito no kamae if I'm not mistaken.
Many sensei call it nitoryu, mind you.

[Confound]

I hear about nito ryu and jodan ryu often, and i feel like an idiot for asking, but what the heck are we talking about?

c

[Kenshi]

Nito is fighting with two shinai, one long, one short. The short shinai is in chudan, while the longer shinai is in jodan. "Regular" nito has the long shinai in the right hand, gyaku-nito sees the long shinai in the left hand [methinks].

Check out :
http://www.kendo.org.uk/images/kendo/misc/kendo.jpg
http://www.kendo.org.uk/images/kendo/misc/nittokamae.gif
http://www.kendo.org.uk/images/kendo/misc/gyaku_nittokamae.gif

Jodan is fighting from jodan no kamae (hidari is the usual).

Check out:
http://www.kendo.org.uk/images/kendo/misc/ekc.jpg

"Hyoho niten ichi ryu" is the koryu budo associated with Miyamoto Musashi that includes two-sword technique, but is not limited to it. Many other koryu include two-sword kata sets.

Thats all. You must have seen someone fence from jodan before??

[Confound]

ok, for some reason, i've heard nito ryu called a different name, but it could be just the fact that i live in a really traditional area that hasn't even gotten around to calling tenegui anything but otenegui. (respected hand towel)

c

ps - jodan? no. i have seen a reasonable amount of nito ryu though. in fact. i've seen someone fight with two regular sized shinai. . . that was more than a little impressive.