Military Training (Samurai) II

Samurai girls did not receive formal education, but they were expected to run their husbands' estate while they were away at war. They also received martial arts training, especially in the yari and naginata, and there are many examples of samurai women fighting alongside their husbands. (p.60)

During the Age of Warring States, samurai schools were established in which a master, called a sense, would teach his skills. Children from wealthy families were sent to these academies where they were schooled in literature and the arts, including the martial arts. (p.60)

Hojo Nagauji, writing in the sixteenth century, instructed his students that "when one has the least bit of spare time, he should always take out some piece of literature or something with characters on it that he has kept in his pocket, and read where no one will be looking..  At the end of the sixteenth century samurai started practicing with a shinai, a pole made out of light bamboo. (p.61)