is a

naginatajutsu is the Japanese martial art of wielding the . The naginata is a weapon resembling the European glaive and the Chinese Guandao, guan dao. Most naginatajutsu practiced today is in a modernized form, a ''gendai budō'', in which competitions also ...

koryū which claims to have descended from ''

Kashima Shinden Jikishinkage-ryū , often referred to simply as Jikishinkage-ryū or Kashima Shinden, is a traditional school (''koryū'') of the Japanese martial art of swordsmanship (''kenjutsu''). The school was founded in the mid-16th century, based upon older styles of swo ...

''. Despite this claim, Jikishinkage-ryū naginatajutsu does not appear to have any of the original rituals, esoteric teachings, body and weapon movements of Kashima Shinden Jikishinkage-ryū. Sometime during the 1860s, Satake Kanryūsai (佐竹鑑柳斎) and his wife, Satake Shigeo (佐竹茂雄) developed a new naginata style which eventually came to be known as Jikishinkage-ryū naginatajutsu. In the Bugei Ryūha Daijiten (武芸流派大事典), the name of this school is also rendered as Jikishin-ryū-kage-ryū (直心柳影流) . It is usually claimed that Satake Kanryūsai was an exponent of Kashima Shinden Jikishinkage-ryū (鹿島神傳直心影流) and Yanagikage-ryū (柳影流). However it is believed by some that Ryūgō-ryū (柳剛流) was instead the main influence of Jikishinkage-ryū naginatajutsu, as Ryūgō-ryū was famous for using very long

shinai A is a Japanese sword typically made of bamboo used for practice and competition in '' kendō''. ''Shinai'' are also used in other martial arts, but may be styled differently from ''kendō shinai'', and represented with different characters. ...

(120 - 183 cm in length) as well as attacks to the lower legs, a technique which Jikishinkage-ryū naginatajutsu itself became famous for. Additionally, the way the naginata is held in Jikishinkage-ryū naginatajutsu appears to resemble that of a sword rather than a heavy pole weapon. The school's main curriculum consists of twenty-five naginata kata and ten tantō kata. In addition, there are five secret naginata ''gokui-waza'' (極意技) and four kata forming the ''reiken-shihō-kiri'' (霊剣四方切). Ten kusarigama kata from Chokuyūshin-ryū (直猶心流) are also transmitted together with the naginata kata. Jikishinkage-ryū naginatajutsu and

Tendō-ryū , also known as , is a koryū (school of traditional Japanese martial arts) founded in 1582 by Saito Hangan Denkibo Katsuhide. The current headmaster (as of 2020) is the 17th sōke Kimura Yasuko. Although Denkibo was already an incredibly talen ...

are the two main classical schools of naginatajutsu which the modern practice ''atarashii naginata'' is mainly derived from.

References

Ko-ryū bujutsu 1860s establishments in Japan Games and sports introduced in the 1860s {{japan-stub