glowingfish

Sonobe Hideo was born in 1870 up north in Sendai; her birth name was Kusaka Tarita (a first name meaning “enough,” possibly in the sense of “enough daughters already,” as she was number six). Her father was a stablemaster for the local lord, and she spent her early youth riding around on his horses and driving everyone to distraction. In 1886, the Jikishin Kage-ryu swordmaster Satake Kanryusai came to town with his wife Shigeo, a master of the naginata (polearm), to give a demonstration of their martial arts, fascinating Tarita, who joined him as a student (in spite of violent opposition from her family).

She helped out behind the scenes while learning the naginata from Kanryusai and Shigeo, becoming a certified master in 1888 at the age of eighteen. Kanryusai gave her the name Hideo in commemoration, which she used for the rest of her life (written with the characters 秀, excellent, and 雄, male, it is usually a man’s name, but was apparently intended to mean “superior to the men”; the “o” may also have been in honor of the same character in Shigeo’s name).

In 1891 Hideo married Yoshioka Gosaburo, a fellow swordmaster, but found herself widowed within only a few years. She fostered out her young daughter and continued her work as a traveling swordmaster. In 1896 the Satakes made her the head of the Jikishin Kage-ryu Naginata school, and in the same year she married Sonobe Masatoshi, a swordmaster in a related school, using his family name thereafter. While looking after the home and taking care of his mother and his children from a previous marriage, she continued to practice the naginata, defeating her husband every time they met in the dojo.

In 1899 she was the only woman to participate in the 4th All-Japan Kendo Tournament, handily defeating several formidable opponents, most of them close to a foot taller than she was. Thereafter, she taught naginata at her husband’s martial arts school in Kobe, the Kobukan, while also offering classes at regional women’s normal schools and private lessons to the nobility. “Keep the naginata in mind all the time, whether you’re sweeping the floor or walking down the street,” she advised. She continued to rack up an impressive record of tournament wins and teaching experience; in 1930 she took part in a woman’s match at the Imperial Palace against her student Yamauchi Sachiko (the former princess who ended up not marrying the Taisho Emperor, in favor of Kujo Sadako), which—amazingly—can be seen on video here.

Hideo founded her own naginata dojo, the Shutokukan, in 1936. Said to have lost only two matches throughout her life, she died in 1963 at the age of ninety-three. Training in her school of naginata is still an active concern.

Sources
https://koryu.com/library/wwj4/ (English) Article on Hideo and her martial arts practice
https://www.myday.com.tw/a_myday/product_view.php?apiname=api_japan_yahoo&itemcode=e1088243017 (Chinese) Sorry for the weird site link; this painting seems to show Satake Shigeo (on the left) fighting with naginata