Necessity truly is the mother of invention. Though I've been doing woodworking casually for a number of years and have always appreciated the look and feel of a nice piece of wood, I never really considered making my own weapons—much less weapons for others—until I started training in a koryu naginata style and found out just how difficult the needed naginata were to obtain outside of Japan.

First I started repairing naginata, then I began playing around with creating the "blade" geometry for bokuto and naginata. A certain amount of digging led to discovery of two super exotic wood suppliers each within an hour of my house (alas, in opposite directions). So here I am. With a rack chock-full of weapons in the house, my husband asks, "Do you have a slight problem?"

"It's not a problem," I say. "It's a solution."

I'm gradually working on expanding my range. Right now, it includes a su naginata based from those used in Tenshinsho-den Katori Shinto-ryu, a rokushaku bo based on a naginata with a broken blade (oval haft), shouldered or unshouldered tachi and kodachi with mitsu-mune (double ridge), beefy tanto, and tessen. Yari are in development, and look promising.