Are we practicing Bujutsu or Budo? Does it matter?

Are you practicing karate as Bujutsu or Budo?  Do you care?  I hope you do.  I believe it does matter and we must ask this question to all karate practitioners and instructors.  Unfortunately, many of them do not care.  Even if they do, they either fail to understand the differences or they are too lazy to research about these concepts.

Let’s look at the popular reasons for the people to pick up karate and practice:

• Self defense

• Health/physical conditioning

• Stress reduction/mental wellness

• Competition/tournaments

All these reasons are good and respectable ones.  We must not pass the judgment on any of the reasons and to regard any of them is better than the others.  Though I am glad to see the people practicing karate for whatever the reasons, I have a strong concern with the current trend of tremendous amount of participation in the tournament activities, especially by the children and the youths.  In fact too much emphasis is put on winning.  The participants are told to do whatever necessary to win the matches.  The things they are encouraged to do are to use only the certain techniques that are easier to score, to bend the rules, to do illegal things (by hiding them from the judges), to change kata moves to look “fancy”, etc.  Their ultimate goal is to win without paying much attention to anything else and that is the essence of Bujutsu, martial arts.  The 16^th century Japan was in a war period and they cared only the best swordsmanship in order to survive in a battle.

Well then, what is different between Bujutsu and Budo?   I believe a half of the problem comes from many of us not having clear understanding of the differences between the two terms and concepts.  Most of us consider them as same or believe that they are inter-changeable.  This is the gravest misconception and it is where the serious problem begins. (read more...)

Shihan Yokota has published numerous articles and books: