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Old 02-15-2001, 05:23 AM   #59
Chris Li
 
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Dojo: Aikido Sangenkai
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii
Join Date: Dec 2000
Posts: 3,313
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Quote:
Dan Hover wrote:
yes you two are both right the we usually use the word Budo to mean martial arts, but that doesnt make it correct. In fact if you read up on the meaning of Bu and Satome has written an excellent essay on it, in the principles of Aikido. He is quite adamant about the common misusage of the term. What we find comfortable and easy to say doesnt denote correctness. we take the hard left instead of the easy right, and this is why we train to begin with. To make the sacrifices that go with living a martial way, a "do" form. Like I said it is more common to say budo and mean Martial arts, but budo is so much more.
I've read his essay, and in the sense that he's explaining Morihei Ueshiba's vision of "budo" it's quite interesting, but this is essentially a modern vision, and one that is specific to Aikido and a few of the other modern Japanese arts. In the historical sense of the term "budo" he's somewhat more off base.

His reading of the kanji "budo" as "stopping the spear" is largely metaphorical and is, in the literal sense, just wrong. The character reading "stop" actually meant, originally, "to proceed forward" (which is why that radical is used in so many kanji that refer to feet or actions with the feet). Therefore the original meaning of "bu" would be something more like "advance with a spear" (actually more of a halberd), which sounds like a pretty good description of war to me. If you think about the meaning in that way it makes a lot of sense, as the character was originally created in times where the only instance of "stopping the spear" would be if you stopped it in the belly of your enemy.

In any case, the whole "do"/"jutsu" thing was more or less exagerrated by Donn Draeger - most Japanese (even Japanese martial artists) will just give you blank stares if you ask them about the differences. It really started when Jigoro Kano started using it for "Judo" (it was already in use in other arts, but he probably put it over the top), but his reasons for doing so were really quite practical and basically involved a desire to distinguish his martial art from the rest of the pack.

Best,

Chris
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