Naginata books

**alepto** · 18th March 2004, 05:54 PM

Hello all

Recently I have been trying to track down naginata specific ,or at least where naginata is mentioned in more than a few paragraphs, books.

The following are the ones I have spotted...

Training guides

Sports V Course - Illustrated Naginata - Japanese, have not been able to find the English version, but I know it exists ( anyone know where the English version is available from?)

Illustrated Naginata ( English version from SCNF & assorted "e-tailers" ) -- my favorite, gets hammered a fair bit between each training session.

A new book mentioned in Kendo World Vol2 #3
"Naginata a guide for beginners & instructors". The editorial mentions March 2004, anyone got an Url for this?

historical / reference

Old school essays on Japanese martial traditions -- Ellis Amdur ( gets a good review in Kendo world ..... so must be good!)
Japanese Spears: An Historical Survey of "Naginata" and "Yari" - from Earliest Times to the End of the Edo Period [Hardcover]
By: Roald Knutsen, Patricia Knutsen ( spotted at amazon.co.uk slated for publishing April 2004)

Considering the several tonnes of kendo books available in english I am guessing there must be a quite a few more out there somewhere. Preferably in English and currently published..

Any thoughts?

**xvikingx** · 18th March 2004, 08:53 PM

The dojo I train at also happens to be the headquarters for the AJNF; the English version of "Sport V Course" can be purchased from them for 2,500 yen (about $24 U.S.). I checked out the Japanese version of this book and it is similar to "Illustrated Naginata" but further detailed. I think it is quite good.
I am also a fan of "Illustrated Naginata", it's an excellent book. I plan on making the English version of "Sports V Course" part of my collection when I get around to it.
Here is the link ( http://www.konishi.co.jp/html/naginata/item.html ), however if you can't read Japanese it won't do you much good.

**R A Sosnowski** · 19th March 2004, 12:20 AM

Originally Posted by alepto

Hello all

Recently I have been trying to track down naginata specific ,or at least where naginata is mentioned in more than a few paragraphs, books.

The following are the ones I have spotted...

Training guides

Sports V Course - Illustrated Naginata - Japanese, have not been able to find the English version, but I know it exists ( anyone know where the English version is available from?)

Illustrated Naginata ( English version from SCNF & assorted "e-tailers" ) -- my favorite, gets hammered a fair bit between each training session.

A new book mentioned in Kendo World Vol2 #3
"Naginata a guide for beginners & instructors". The editorial mentions March 2004, anyone got an Url for this?

historical / reference

Old school essays on Japanese martial traditions -- Ellis Amdur ( gets a good review in Kendo world ..... so must be good!)
Japanese Spears: An Historical Survey of "Naginata" and "Yari" - from Earliest Times to the End of the Edo Period [Hardcover]
By: Roald Knutsen, Patricia Knutsen ( spotted at amazon.co.uk slated for publishing April 2004)

Considering the several tonnes of kendo books available in english I am guessing there must be a quite a few more out there somewhere. Preferably in English and currently published..

Any thoughts?

What you see is what there is as far as I know in English.

There may be some more in Japanese, but you really need to know Japanese in order to find them, especially on the web.

As there is such a tiny community of Naginata-ka outside of Japan (as compared to, say, Kendo-ka outside of Japan), I don't see a proliferation of more English-language texts, either original or translated from Japanese, any time soon.

**etherknot** · 19th March 2004, 05:21 AM

I have a small portion of Illustrated Naginata. I think I saw the Sports V Course book about five minutes after successfully completing my gokyu grading two weeks ago (thank you, thank you). I'll see if I can grab the rest of Illustrated Naginata and the Sports V Course book (as I have not yet read any of it).

**xvikingx** · 19th March 2004, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by R A Sosnowski

There may be some more in Japanese...

Actually you'd be pretty surprised how little there is available in Japanese as well. I have found two other books besides "Sport V Course" in Japanese, as opposed to kendo which practically has it's own section at the book store. They have such great resources on kendo here, with ken-sen diagrams and all, but the naginata books vary very little. They all pretty much cover/ overview etiquette, kihon, shikake-oji, and how to put on your bogu. I'd like to get my hands on a book that covers various waza and more advanced techniques.

**R A Sosnowski** · 19th March 2004, 02:08 PM

Originally Posted by xvikingx

Actually you'd be pretty surprised how little there is available in Japanese as well. I have found two other books besides "Sport V Course" in Japanese, as opposed to kendo which practically has it's own section at the book store. They have such great resources on kendo here, with ken-sen diagrams and all, but the naginata books vary very little. They all pretty much cover/ overview etiquette, kihon, shikake-oji, and how to put on your bogu. I'd like to get my hands on a book that covers various waza and more advanced techniques.

If you find one, let us know.

**etherknot** · 20th March 2004, 05:52 AM

Yes! Do share whatever tidbits you can find. Cause it's not like we're going to "learn naginata" solely from books.

Although I can think of a few lessons from a forthcoming publication by me named "Fun With Waki-gamae".

**xvikingx** · 20th March 2004, 11:11 AM

Originally Posted by R A Sosnowski

If you find one, let us know.

Hey, we've all got to dream.

**Phil** · 21st March 2004, 10:19 PM

"Naginata a guide for beginners & instructors". ???

do you know where i can order this book??

and also i wanted to know if someone have a book about zen nihon naginata kata??? i have some video but with a really bad angle...

thanks,

Phil

**R A Sosnowski** · 21st March 2004, 10:29 PM

Originally Posted by Phil

"Naginata a guide for beginners & instructors". ???

do you know where i can order this book??

and also i wanted to know if someone have a book about zen nihon naginata kata??? i have some video but with a really bad angle...

thanks,

Phil

My understanding is that Dr. Alex's next translation offering would contain Zen Nihon Kata. (He is the translator of Illustrated Naginata & Sports V Course - Naginata) I cannot wait ...

**Phil** · 21st March 2004, 10:31 PM

Originally Posted by R A Sosnowski

My understanding is that Dr. Alex's next translation offering would contain Zen Nihon Kata. (He is the translator of Illustrated Naginata & Sports V Course - Naginata) I cannot wait ...

waaaaaa!!! do you know when it s coming out?

**Nagi David** · 24th March 2004, 04:36 PM

It would be great to read this book and have a kind of reference where you can check what your are doing. But on the other hand it's not easy to learn martial arts with books

Niten · 18th May 2004, 11:12 AM

I took me a while to find the english version of the book, but i found it! At least i think this is the book you were looking for. If it isn't the book, then inform me because i am thinking of getting this book as well.

Click here

**Alex** · 18th May 2004, 02:25 PM

G'day Naginata mates,

sorry, I completely missed this thread.

Just to let you know what is going down on the Naginata publication front, I have completely redone the Sports V Course translation and added a whole lot of new stuff about the history of naginata, shiai, new glossary etc etc. It is a vast improvement and actually goes into more detail than anything available in Japanese (although that is not saying much.)

This book will be published by KW Publications as Naginata- A Practical Guide for Beginners and Instructors in November of this year.

The book will retail for US$15 and ALL proceeds will be donated to the International Naginata Federation.

Recently the AJNF published a basic textbook for kata. It is not that great, but better than nothing. The AJNF asked me to translate the book so that they could make photocopies of my translated script and staple them inside the Japanese book for sale by the AJNF for the ridiculous price of 3000 yen. They won't send overseas, so you'd have to come to Japan to get it!

I suggested that we produce an actual English book for sale by the INF. The AJNF said that they would not allow us to use the photos in an English version because they wanted to make money for themselves. I want to make money for the International Federation. Thus and so, Kimura sensei of the International Budo University (she is one of the authors and models in the Japanese version) has agreed to join us in making a brand new English version specifically for the INF.

We also plan to have this out by November this year, and again ALL proceeds will go to the INF to help naginata in countries other than Japan. Rest assured this will also be an improvement on the recently produced Japanese book.

I hope that you will all buy these books and help us support international naginata!