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Old 10-22-2013, 09:52 AM   #16
Peter Boylan
Join Date: Aug 2001
Posts: 291
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Re: Can you truly understand budo without training in Japan?

Quote:
Alex Fitzgerald wrote: View Post
..

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.
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I think you missed the last part of the blog post

"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"

Peter Boylan
Mugendo Budogu LLC
Budo Books, Videos, Equipment from Japan
http://www.budogu.com
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