Budo vs budo-sport
The hand-to-hand fighting part of bujutsu is usually called jujutsu and was designed to be used for immobilizing, maiming or killing armed or unarmed adversaries. The techniques therefore could
- Immediately damage - kicks and strikes at vulnerable points
- Kill, maim, immobilize, disarm at a short distance - throws, breaks and locks
- Kill, maim, immobilize, at body contact standing and on the ground - throws, breaks, chokes and strangulations.
Competitions were impossible since that would have lead to death or severe injuries for one or both combatants. Bujutsu therefore cannot have competitions and of precisely the same reasons budo cannot. After all budo is a subset of bujutsu practiced for the benefit of developing the personality of the practitioner.
We see that it is not entirely correct to talk about budo as a sport, at least not sport in the strict sense. Then what shall we call it? Actually there is no good English word for characterizing budo and for unveiling its essence.
Suffice to say that budo is to seriously and as authentic as possible train antiquarian unarmed close combat techniques, and possibly also old weapons´techniques, with the aim of improving oneself as a human being. Aikido then, cannot be a budo-sport if the emphasis is on sport.
Is Aikido Budo?
If we compare aikido, karate and judo with the description of budo given above, we see that.
- Karate = Immediately damage and possibly kill.
- Aikido = Kill, maim, immobilize, disarm at a short distance.
- Judo = Kill, maim, immobilize, at close physical contact, standing or on the ground.
None of the three covers the whole area of jujutsu.
- And yet Jigoro Kano created his judo by collecting and combining techniques from different jujutsu-ryu with the aim of thereby preserving and saving them from obliteration.
- Hidenori Otsuka was awarded a menkyo kaiden (certificate that the whole body of knowledge had been transferred, this is given to at the most a handful of students) in Shindo Yoshin-ryu jujutsu, before he founded Wado-ryu karate.
- Mas Oyama, the founder of Kyokushin karate also had trained Daito-ryu aikijujutsu, which has its roots in 10th century Japan.
- Sokaku Takeda was Daito-ryu aikijujutsu headmaster and is today seen as the most important link between feudal time bujutsu and modern time. Aikido founder Morihei Ueshiba was a leading student of Sokaku Takeda and created his aikido from the battle effective techniques of aikijutsu.
Even if these portal figures of budo themselves started in classical jujutsu and were proficient in all aspects of the art they never the less shrank down their respective arts to contain a lesser part of what they originally started with. None of the modern budo-arts therefore measure up to classical jujutsu as combat systems. But that is, as we have seen, not the intention since the enemy is not outside but inside the practitioner. The aim of budo is to defeat the ego (at least that is what is said at solemn moments).
Even if a budo-art has developed to contain only a smaller part of the original systems techniques, it is still budo. The conclusion is aikido is budo, but from a strict point of view only so if practiced in the right way with the right attitude.
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