Budo, Bujutsu, the same root

The more time passes, the more my questions find answers. And those answers give birth to new questions. 

It is an infinite cycle, kinda like a staircase where every step taken gives us a more and more aerial vision, which gives a greater and greater dimension to what we observe or study.

One question returns each time I step on a tatami :

 « Why ? »

This simple question allows to decode and understand many things within and around us.

Once he reached the top of his technical expertise master Ueshiba dwelved deep into religion and found what he referred as « the divine in him ». He also said « The true nature of the Budo is love ».

It isn’t necessarilly obvious to find this spirit in the arts of war. Most of us certainly came to practice bujutsu or budo practice with the goal to obtain something personally… It is with time and questionning that our vision of our practice changes and brings us to see the true nature of things.

Moving on to the teaching also has an important part to play on this road, because it gives us an exceptionnal look in our learning process. The other, the student, becomes the mirror of our own look on our practice. Like they say so well « one recognizes the tree by its fruits », the student is the reflection of his teacher.

This is the very principle of the energy « we are One », the other is only a part of ourselves. It’s when we understand it that the word « Love » takes a meaning. Because practice brings us much farther than our own self. When ego leads the way, martial arts become combat or parade sports, no budo, no bujutsu, they empty from their essence.

Time is our terrestrial line of existence. Why lose it making war ? Because even if I am stronger technically or physically, ilness, old age, a poisonning, an accident and many more things will make death come someday and take me away just like the one who’s facing me. We are only men looking for answers about our existence and our path on earth.

Tamura sensi was already ill with cancer when I began to practice Aikido and he did not stop, he practiced until he died. He wasn’t fighting, he was showing a way.

One of his sentences comes back to my mind :

« If you practice to win a fight, better learn to use a firearm. The question is to know what we are looking for through the practice. »

Toshiro Suga said :

« The Budo is a path of purification. It is the misogi haraï. It is not a path of destruction of the adversary. It is a path that is beyond victory and defeat ».

For some people, bujutsu and budo are not the same thing. But as a matter of fact, they have the same root as what is the BU. And even us as Humans have the same Root. Wether it is seen through the angle of the technique or the path, we start off and talk about the same things.

If on the tatami we compare the quality of our practice to the others’, if we judge, we lose the sense of what this exchange with the other can bring, and this look over ourselves that we should have come looking for. 

The martial art then has no more value than a combat sport. No Budo, no Bujutsu, only a parade. 

The only one that goes toward the other in peace will find peace in himself, on the tatami too.