文武両道 - Traditional Budo

Terms like 'traditional', 'old-school', 'real', 'authentic', 'pure', 'ancient', 'old-style' and 'original' are thrown around a lot by martial arts clubs these days, especially in marketing for the recruitment of new students.
These terms are used to give the layperson an impression that their club teaches some untarnished pure original style that "Joe Smith" down the road won't teach you. Because of this overuse in marketing, words like these have become almost meaningless.

In reality there is no 'one traditional original source' for martial arts that one person might know that others wouldn't know. Karate itself can be traced to many more than 10 or even 20 original sources, spanning over many decades. 
So if you say that you practice the 'more traditional' form (just because it's different the other place down the road) mean's you're either ignorant, misinformed or simply lying.

Through my own experience and research I have seen firsthand many techniques, customs and forms of etiquette which are called 'traditions' but they couldn't be more than 30 or 40 years old. If it was devised within our lifetime, it's NOT an 'ancient tradition'.
A perfect example of this is a couple of things that we think of as quintessential traditions of karate; the grade ranking system, coloured obi (belts), and the do-gi (karate uniform). Each of these things were come up with in the early to mid 20th century, not hundreds or thousands of years ago as many assume.

So the things that the majority think of as 'old-style traditional Karate' isn't really that old and while many practices have become traditions today, they simply haven't been that way for very long. So they aren't as traditional as we would want to think.

With this in mind, how do you find out what actually is the older martial arts what they might have done in pre-modern times?
How do you learn the 'old-school' system that isn't only 30 or 40 years old?
How do we find what Karate was intended to be, before it was modernised.

The answer is simple in my opinion.

There are no 'traditional styles'!

It's not about finding the style or the club that does it the old-school way, because every Budo school around today, that I have seen, has been influenced in some way by recent modern traditions. 
So in reality 'traditional budo' is really found in a couple of things:

1. It's about YOUR approach to the training.
It's not found in traditions or uniforms. It's about your mindset, what you think of your own training and how you approach it. 
It's about how dedicated you are. Do you take it seriously? Do you think on lessons you should be learning (even meditate on something you need to learn)?

2. Use common sense.
If you're training solely for an upcoming tournament or worrying if your technique looks good, you probably don't have the same approach to your training that people did 300 years ago. True martial arts was devised to work in real life against a dangerous opponent. Looking good and scoring points was never the intended purpose of the techniques. 

3. Do some research.
Seek to learn about people that were coming up with and using the martial arts in the past and the world and times they lived in.
Information about the martial way does exist from pre-modern times. 
A couple of books immediately come to mind (among others):

• The Art of War (5th century BCE),
• The Bubishi (exact date unknown, but very old),
• The Hagakure (1700's), and
• The Book of Five Rings (1645)

In the Book of Five Rings, Musashi talks about the way of the warrior and what it should involve. 
He says "It is said the warrior's is the two-fold Way of pen and sword, and he should have a taste for both Ways."

This two-fold Way of pen and sword has a proper term in Japanese:

"Bunbu Ryodo" 文武両道

In simple terms, it means that a warrior develops both martial skill and mental skills (so they are good with a sword and a pen). A true warrior is both smart and formidable with their abilities.
So, the 'old-school' way has two parts, it's not just the fighting system.

Also, in my opinion the 'mental development' doesn't include learning about the Karate (who the old masters were, history and meaning of the Kata and so on), these are an inherent part of the fighting system. 

I think that mental development is about learning WHO you are and developing yourself to become a better version of yourself, it's all about character development. 

A good starting point for this is with the virtues of Bushido. In reality living life is more complex than just seven character traits. So in general terms, once you've applied yourself to the code of Bushido, don't limit it to just these seven virtues, it's about having virtue, being virtuous.

The two-fold way of Bunbu Ryodo is the the old way of Budo training. 
Funnily enough, the term 'BUDO' means exactly that. As I explained in this post, Budo is made up of two characters 'Bu' 武 (martial) and 'Do' 道 (way).

The 'Do' 道 in Budo is the same as the Chinese Dao (or Tao) 道. As in the ancient text 'The Daodejing' (or Tao Te Ching) 道德經, which literally means "The Book of the Way of Virtue!"

So the name 'BU-DO' itself tells us that it's about the two-fold way.

To my mind this is a good definition of 'Traditional Budo': If you want to do it the old-school way you must incorporate an actual fighting system. A fighting system that works against a real opponent. 
If you can't rely on your system in the most serious of situations (when it comes down to either them or you) then it's not a fighting system. 
But that's only half of the 'Budo equation'. The other half is about developing who you are, to be a person of virtue!
As Gichin funakoshi said: "The ultimate aim of karate lies not in victory nor defeat, but in the perfection of the character of its participants." [I'm pretty sure he took this quote from the Bubishi]

This is what I think traditional budo is, before the 'modernisation' of martial arts. This is its surviving roots in the modern world.
It can't be found in the techniques or the etiquette and traditions. You can't find 'old-school' karate by judging the way a particular kata is performed and comparing it to other versions of the same kata.

It's found in your approach to it! It's in the way you train and how serious you are about it!

When we talk about the modernisation of budo today, there is another element has been added into the mix. It has become an integral part of martial arts today and it has changed the definition of 'good' budo in the eyes of many practitioners.

This will be the subject of next weeks post.




Comment below to share any thoughts or opinions you might have. J

Thanks for reading.
Derm

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