Budō

The other thing, Richard, what I've done is I've started to consolidate all my knowledge of all the years because I found...

A lot of martial arts is turning into just an activity, more so than the Budo, more so than what I started doing for the martial art mindset.

And I've put together a small group of guys that wanted to be better in all aspects of life.

So I'm starting a mentorship in a couple of weeks.

We usually got kind of one martial arts character every year.

You know, we've mentioned Scarlet and Snake Eyes earlier on, but then you got your... your storm shadow 84 you got your quick kick and then you got your second version of of uh snake eyes in 85 um and i guess we didn't get much in 86 but then we get jinx for the movie and we get budo who's kind of a martial art you know kind of a ninja type character so like there was you know small increments and that was good like one in every 25 figures being a ninja was okay with me

Well, and Budo's the case of ninja just sort of being an umbrella term, because he got included in those martial artists, and then later on when they did those shadow ninjas, Budo's a shadow ninja, despite the fact he's a samurai, right? Does everybody know

what I'm

talking about when I mention the shadow ninjas? Yeah.

He says it's urgent.

Can you take a few moments between patients that I was seeing and talk with him? So I pick up the phone and Bud said, Bud was a former graduate student of mine in a studies and consciousness graduate program at Antioch University and a martial artist, a ski instructor raised in Hawaii, really embodied kind of the Budo spirit of Japanese martial artists.

Beautiful, beautiful beings.

Sports psychology.

And I probably said something like, what have you been smoking? And he goes on to describe how he had just come back from a meeting with Jim Channon and a couple of hundred people in the military industrial complex who were gathering under the auspices of Task Force Delta, which had been created to...

to create a new vision for what the US Army could be in the year 2000, as part of a soul retrieval process that was taking place within the US military at that point, trying to come back from the atrocities of what had taken place in Southeast Asia, The incredible numbers of suicides of men and women when they came back from war and to envision what were the highest potentials for U.S. military, especially the special forces.

And Bud goes on to describe how he was after an Aikido demonstration where he was kind of talking about the noble Budo spirit of Aikido and a martial artist who was deeply informed by a great sense of intimacy with nature of reality and a deep compassion for all beings.

He was approached by two senior military leaders from the Pentagon.

Welcome to Budo, the Way of the Warrior podcast.

This podcast is a collection of historical, philosophical references, contemplations, lectures, and exchanges with David M. Valadez, his students, and guests.

Podcasts are recorded on the mat at the Sension Center.

I just think that's the whole issue.

That makes a complete martial art.

And I don't think you have to, nor should you get trapped in all these false dichotomies like Aikido's not martial, or that's not Aikido, or even It's a Budo, not a Bujutsu.

That's all bullshit.

Or even coming up with other things to justify the art.

It taught me about perseverance, humility, character, yeah, a sense of budo, yeah, an honour code, the way people should conduct themselves.

And does that translate to modern martial arts? Of course it does.

Yeah, if more people in jiu-jitsu or modern submission grappling, whatever you want to call it, had the traditional Budo ideals on a code, a little bit of humility in the way that they conducted themselves, And that doesn't mean that you can't be.

When I say that, you know, my students will tell you sometimes I'm an arrogant prick.

Sometimes I'll bark and scream and carry on.

Yeah, they gave me perseverance, all that sort of stuff.

But they didn't.

For me personally, it wasn't the same as the old school Japanese Budo type stuff.

And while he was stationed in California, he fell in love with martial arts or who do the martial way.

If you ever get cornered at a party by a karate weirdo, you're going to hear words like Budo all the time.

Also, Fujitsu, the study of physical combat, and Bushido, the ancient code of the samurai.

Well, Johnny clearly got corner trapped like that during army parties in California, and he loved it.

Welcome to Budo, the Way of the Warrior podcast.

This podcast is a collection of historical, philosophical references, contemplations, lectures, and exchanges with David M. Valadez, his students, and guests.

Podcasts are recorded on the mat at the Sension Center.

Because that is where death happens.

So the Aikiken is not just Aikiken because you call it Aikiken.

I think, you know, for me as a historian, like, The whole Budo, Bujutsu, that whole thing, it's so obviously fake.

It's so obviously an invention.

To me, I know.

Mm-hmm.

Atemi, uh... which is really interesting, is like Yoshida Sensei's translation of Budo Ren- Renshu.

Okay, if you look at it, there's always an atemi in the front.

Yeah.

Um, do you think that having been a longtime practitioner of a traditional martial art, that it's changed how you deal with your own ego? Are you more humble now because you've seen all these experiences? Um, because, you know, some- so I think, I think there's a thing in our culture, there are people that when they develop some level of expertise, they can kinda put it in people's faces, and there, there can be a little arrogance attached to it.

But do you think that the nature of longtime practice of a traditional martial art moderates ego and allows you to develop, like, a positive humility?

Well, that's intent, right, of, of, of a Budo, as opp- as opposed to purely a technical fighting training.

Mm-hmm.

It took me into higher levels of martial arts.

It took me into Budo.

It took me into study of psychology, physiology, sociology.

It took me eventually into the study of metaphysics.

Then I was developing tools to batter them, and that was just adding to the parasite.

It made the parasite strong, made it muscular, it made it dangerous, but that 11-year-old kid was still in there, still afraid, still terrified.

And the only way I was able to get that back was when I eschewed violence and started to find a higher level of play, which is, as you know as a martial artist, is the Budo.

Absolutely.