Naginata World Championship Report

The International Naginata Federation (INF) held its World Championship Saturday, June 28, 2003 at San Jose State University, San Jose California. This is the 3rd cycle for the Naginata World Championship. The previous Taikai were Paris in 1999 and Tokyo in 1995.

Unfortunately, the Japanese choose not to attend. The AJNF in mid May, with less than 6 weeks to go, requested that the Taikai be postponed until at least September. Their public reason was that they were afraid of catching SARS. The fact that there was no SARS in San Jose, and only a single reported case for all of Northern California seemed to have no effect on their decision. The INF polled its member countries and 7 of the 10 members voted to continue as scheduled. Only Brazil and New Zealand voted with Japan. Brazil was not planning to come anyway because of the weak economy in Brazil. New Zealand did send a representative. The other 7 members of the INF had teams in the Taikai. The attending countries were: Australia, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, New Zealand, Netherlands, Sweden and the USA. Missing were Brazil and Japan.

The AJNF told its members not to come at all. Fortunately, there were several Shimpan who had strong ties to the USA and the INF who refused to be so ordered. The Chief Judge was Funaharu Shizue Sensei, (Hanshi). Kyoshi assisted her: Kimura Yasuko, Ebisawa Ban, Fukuda Keiko, Sato Kouko. The General Secretary of the INF, Tamaki Katsuko Renshi, was as always extremely busy making sure everything was running correctly. The two USA Kyoshi (Tanaka Miyako and Yamauchi Sachiko) and two USA Renshi (Helen Nakano and Malyne Hazard) plus help from two French Renshi (Simone Charton and Cecile Hamot) completed the Shimpan panel. Tanaka Miyako, Kyoshi, was the host country representative, and Yamauchi Sachiko was the Taikai Director.

Shimpan

The INF held a Board of Directors and General Meeting on Sunday, June 29. At that time they accepted the application from Canada as the 11th member country into the INF. The Canadians had 9 representatives who came from all the current Naginata centers in Canada: Vancouver, Edmonton, Guelph, Toronto and Montreal.

Canadian Delegation

The President of the INF, Yanagawa Kakuji, has been ill for some time and resigned. All member countries present voted a new President of the INF in unanimously. The INF is privileged to have as its second President Hashimoto Kumiko. She is the wife of former Japanese Prime Minister and well-known Kendo-ka Hashimoto Ryutaro. While some thought it strange that Hashimoto San did not know any Naginata when she became INF President (neither did the former President), it became very clear how serious she took her new position when on Monday morning at the INF seminar she came in Hakama ready for her first lesson. It became quite impressive to watch how fast she learned. Part of it was having semi-private lessons from different members of the Shimpan. But, mostly it was the result of her hard work for the entire 3 days of the seminar. Practicing on her own when the instructors were busy also made a very good impression on everyone. The result was that on Wednesday afternoon the USNF promoted her to Yonkyu. Some of us thought that Sankyu or even Nikyu was closer to the mark.

The Taikai was held on Saturday June 28th 2003 in the non-air-conditioned gym of SJSU. Normally it wouldn't matter, but it was 104 on Thursday, 103 on Friday and over 100 on Saturday. Inside the gym it had to be well over 100 degrees (39 C). It was brutal, but the Taikai went on without a hitch. After the march in by the officials and contestants by country. INF Vice President Kondo Tadahiko gave a short but strong speech in English, French and Japanese.

There was an interesting demonstration of Aztec dances as the Taikai was readied to begin.

Aztec Dancers

The first contest was the Engi Shiai, which is a two person Kata competition with two teams performing the same 3 Kata before 5 judges. The final pairing for first place was Bruce Mitchell and Eric Montes from the USA. 2nd place went to Belgium's Philibert Vandersleyen & Francois Dermine. 3rd went to France's team of Loric Delalande & Dominique Pouchard.

The Rhythm Naginata contest only had two countries: Belgium and the USA. The Belgium team was slick and polished. The USA team was sincere and strong. It was a hard one to call since each team had its particular style. The experience of the Belgium prevailed in a close vote by the judges of 3 to 2.

The Women's Individual came up next and the USA did not fare very well. First place went to a strong competitor Jana Soukupova from the Czech Rep. Second place went to Catherine Parisis of France, and Annick Henrotte of Belgium got third.

After lunch, the men's individual matches were swept by Belgium. The order of first to third was: Tly Dermine, Jonathana D'Hose, and Francois Dermine.

The Women's Team matches had only 3 teams entered and their order was France first place, Belgium second place and the USA team last place.

Things looked up for the Men's Team match with the USA team of Martin Nobida Sempo, Kevin Saxton Chuken and Bob Peterson Taisho taking first place. The Belgium team came in a close second with France as third. There were also teams from the Netherlands and Australia who gave them a rough time for every point.

USA Team

The over all trophies were awarded to a very strong and talented Belgium team. This will make it easy for them to return the trophy for the next Taikai in 2007 since they will be the host country.

While the scores were added up, there was a 5 demonstration matches between Kendo and Naginata. Two of the Kendo-ka was also Naginata-ka earlier in the day. The matches were exciting with the Naginata-ka only scoring a couple points more than the Kendo-ka.

Friendship Tournament Head Table

Friendship Tournament Men’s Court Officials

Friendship Tournament Women’s Court Officials

The next day was the Friendship Tournament; thankfully the temperature dropped over 20 degrees on Saturday night making the rest of the time very pleasant. The contestants were divided into four groups: Dangai men and women, Yudansha men and women. There were only trophies for first place in each group. The winners are:

Dangai Women: O. Vilian of France

Dangai Men: Ellery Engalla of USA (NY Nichibukan)

Yudansha Women: Margaret Welsh of USA (NY Nichibukan)

Yudansha Men: Philibert Vandersleyen of Belgium

Philibert and Ellery

Monday June 30th was the beginning of the INF 3 day Naginata Seminar. On Wednesday afternoon, the USNF held a promotion examination for anyone trying for a Dangai rank (Kyu). At the same time the INF was holding a promotion for Yudansha. There were 13 people trying for Shodan, almost as many trying for Nidan, 4 trying for Sandan and 10 trying for Yondan. There was also testing for Shinpan licenses for Sandan and up.

I do not have a complete list of those promoted, but Ellery Engalla is a new Shodan and Ray Sosnowski is a new Sandan. Many USA Sandan have been promoted to Yondan, including: Diana Payne from Colorado, Kevin Saxon from Los Angeles, to mention a couple.

Congratulations to everyone!