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Description
Martial arts was certainly expected of the men in samurai families, but women drawn from those families to the shogun's Inner Palace would also be familiar with handling weapons. During the Edo Period, use of the halberd / naginata was particularly associated with samurai women, used for self-defense and physical fitness training. The light-weight wooden shaft, about 6-8 feet / 2-3 shaku was surmounted by a steel blade, although a wooden blade could be substituted for practice purposes, just as wooden swords / bokken (shown here) were used for training by men and women.
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