Can you truly understand budo without training in Japan?
This is a questions I've thought about quite a bit, and recently someone asked me this point blank. The short answer is, yes, I think you can, but it takes some extra work. The detailed answer is here:
http://budobum.blogspot.com/2013/10/...o-without.html Please let me know what you think of my ideas. |
Re: Can you truly understand budo without training in Japan?
What about budo needs to be understood?
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In Japan there is a kata for doing just about everything. The idea is that there is a best way to do things, and they codify this into a form. The most obvious examples are arts like tea ceremony, flower arranging and calligraphy, but there are kata for pretty much everything.
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Re: Can you truly understand budo without training in Japan?
Point 1: I've not been to Japan and do feel that I understand budo (or at least this one). And granted it has taken me a while, but more interestingly.....
Point 2: I meet people from around the world in my real life that are not involved in the budo and I recently met with a group of Japanese. We had some limited language agreements between us, so I tried to speak about things that they might know like origami and aikido. They knew neither. I wonder what percentage of "modern" Japanese really agree with our conception of them? What percentage of them practice a Way. If they are not involved in the budo do they understand them any better then a non-Japanese? |
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Re: Can you truly understand budo without training in Japan?
There are correct, expected ways to drink and party, yes. There are kata and ways that you would never dream of. This is a link to the National Cleaning Federation and their soujido (Way of Cleaning)
http://www.soujikyoukai.jp/掃除道 (I'm not sure if the kanji link will work, but it's worth a try) |
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Much more common Ways in Japan are sado, shodo and kado. These are quite widely practiced, so a conversation about them would be more likely to meet with someone who knows something about them. |
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...you must go to the Degobah system.
Peter, you're translation of bu/wu seems a little off. Additionally the kanji you reference and their meanings have their roots in China. The Chinese and Koreans also held these values, and taoism and confucionism are imported from the mainland, and still very much part of life in Japan. These concepts and these people have travelled the world, and are available to anyone that is willing to understand them. I would speculate that it is possible, without travelling to Japan to learn budo. Based on your position even if one were to travel to Japan they may not learn it because they were not born there, it is not part of their psyche from day one....maybe that should be the question, can a foriegner learn budo? But I think, we as learning creatures can learn anything. ....so luke went to the Degobah system, but in my opinion it was really Han Solo who embraced budo . |
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"I'm not trying to suggest that budo teachers outside Japan have to become experts on Taoist and Confucian philosophy. That is a life's work by itself, and there are precious few Japanese budo teachers who are also masters of philosophy. Most Japanese teachers have a native cultural understanding of the concepts that they have absorbed from living in Japan. For a teacher outside Japan, I think some reading of the classic texts from Taoism and Confucianism along with plenty of quiet thought about how they relate to budo practice is probably enough. Quiet thought fertilized with the ideas of Lao Tsu, Chuang Tzu and Confucius should bring about some profound realizations on the nature of practice and what the great teachers who created the Ways hope for us, their students, to achieve" |
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Added note....so the spear is not advancing or retreating, it stops. |
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I was in training in Tokyo when I was told directly by my Japanese friend that I could (not would) never understand Budo properly because I was not Japanese.
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