The Essense of Budo for the Practitioner...

[WillyNinja]

"Budo is Budo, and that is all it is. Budo is a great Japanese legacy which our ancestor developed through with their blood, sweat, and their experiences on the battlefield, for complete victory. It is not Budo if there is not thinking about battle and the consequence of true fighting situations. In Budo, if you lose a fight, you face the possibility of death. The Budo practitioner has to have at all times the resolution to die or not. Don't confuse true Budo with Bushido, which was developed in the feudal age as a Samurai theory based on Zen and Confucianism. We have to master ourselves thru Budo training. If you separate the jutsu (techniques) from the michi (the way), and if you try comparing Budo with sport and sportsmen as is the case in Europe, this is not correct. The Ho and Michi are ONE. Sport Budo are decided by rules, use weight classes, and umpires. This is very far from the true Budo of Japan and the East. For training in Budo, one has to keep doing the original kata and waza correctly. This includes all aspects such as the footwork or how to punch, which the previous Grandmaster left as the ryuha. This way, we can never reach the point of losing the art. Some sport Martial artist say that training in only kata is like a mold that one will not be able to break out of to see applications or variations. I do not agree with this. If this is the case, then the instructor is not teaching correctly. In the present, there are many strange martial arts demonstrations wich look like movies. For training in Budo, one has to concentrate with a strong spirit (KI). With this Ki one will not be afraid and can see into the opponents heart. If one cannot be like this as a martial artist, then it is not uselful in real situations. If one trains as if they are a movie actor, then this is just playing martial arts. Even when receiving a serious injury, never run away, or even if ones neck is cut, never surrender until you knock down and completley finish your enemy. If you just train for "points" as in Judo and Karate, then you will never attain the true "points" of Budo. After WW2, Japan was able to reconstruct itself and the Japanese people were able to have a good standard of living. But, even though a nations economy can prosper, if one looses its traditional culture, it is very difficult to reconstruct it. If one doesn't try to preserve and study the arts now, Japanese Budo will soon be lost. I hope to study and train in Japanese Budo instead of spending alot of time as a sports martial artist as many do in the Budokan or in the Budo classes taught at public schools. They have taken control of too many martial arts and are laughed at by other martial artists in China and all over Asia. These things are very shameful for traditional Japanese martial artists and Japan also. I will say again, that Budo is not sport and its theory is not for play. It is also not important how long a scroll is. What is important is the training method and practice. There is a famous phrase in China that says "The person well known about the way never says so, but the person who doesn't know it well soon says" ".
----- Sato Kimbei [1948]

[MarkF]

And the point is....?

Are you attempting to infer something? Is this a message of some kind?

I suspect it is because you posted in the judo forum, as you think judo is not budo?

If I posted something which said Hatsumi is teaching something not only long dead, but a load of crap, would that push your buttons?

No, I don't think so.

Mark

[Joseph Svinth]

"The person who doesn't know it well soon says." Uh, isn't Hatsumi a well-known speaker and writer? If so, then perhaps his words are autobiographical?

Or maybe there are multiple paths up the mountain. Hmm.

Wonder which it could be?

Be that as it may, some equally intriguing (and surely non-controversial) quotes:

"I saw in a newspaper to-day that in Veno Mie Prefecture a group of young office workers had come across some old books dealing with a defunct school -- Nin-jutsu. They became so interested that for fun they decided to try some of the methods."
-- Richard Bowen, "Judo" (Croydon), Nov-Dec 1957, 40.

Ninjas "claimed to possess supernatural powers, such as that of turning themselves into smoke, or a dog or rat, or cross a river without any visible sign of the attempt... No doubt sleight of hand and the simple tricks of the present-day magician had a great deal to do with these illusions, but there is no doubt whatsoever of the 'ninjutsu' knowledge of chemical science which he used to his best advantage."

-- Samuel Salone, "Japan Times," June 17, 1940

"There is NO extant documentation for nijutsu ryuha (including the documents that Hasumi Masaaki claims to possess) that independent experts (historians or authorities on diplomatics) have been able to authenticate as dating from prior to the late 19th century..."

"Movie-style ninja have a much longer history than the movies. Ninja shows, ninja houses (sort of like American 'haunted houses' at carnivals), and ninja novels and stories were popular by the middle of the Tokugawa period.' The 'ninja' performers may have created the genre completely out of whole cloth, or they may have built on genuine lore derived from old spymasters. Either way, however, it's clear that much of the lore underlying both modern ninja movies and modern ninja schools has both a long history AND little basis in reality outside the theatre..."

"In the third edition of the *Bugei ryuha daijiten* Watanari Kiyoshi stated that Takamatsu (who was, by the way, a personal friend of his) had created his 'ninpo' ryu-ha and teachings from 'ninja-gokko' ('childhood ninja games')..."

"You can, of course, always claim that documentation and proof can't be found because they are hidden and the phenomenon discussed was always secret. But this sort of argument can be applied to absolutely ANYTHING. Once you accept its premises, you have to give equal credibility to secret Soviet Russian collaboration with space aliens."

-- Karl Friday, "Journal of Japanese Sword Arts," 11/6-7-8, #103, Jun-Jul-Aug 1999, 35-36.

[Edited by Joseph Svinth on 10-18-2000 at 01:32 PM]

[ghp]

Gees Joe, say it ain't so :eek:

You mean that perhaps someone isn't really a soke of 9 different ryuha?

Just come clean and say what you really mean. It's not like you to be so cryptic :D

Regards,
Guy

[Joseph Svinth]

Guy --

Well, I could always ask Bluming if he has any knowledge of the subject.

[MarkF]

Well, Joe, if and when you do, get it on tape and write it for publication on RealPlayer or Windows Media Player, because you wouldn't have to edit. In his own voice, it erases all doubt.:laugh: