During the course of one’s practice in Karate, sooner or later one will stumble upon the word “Budo”. What is Budo? How is it related to Karate-do? From the Japanese Kanji, Budo is made up of two characters. “Bu” means martial, and “Do” means the way or path. Combined together, they form the meaning “the martial way”.

When we talk about martial, usually this may refer to “military” or var. However, a closer analysis of the Japanese character “bu” and its root word will show you that it is actually comprised of two characters. One will mean “spear” or “halberd” and the other character means “to stop”. So in actuality, “bu” will refer to stop fighting or to stop conflict. Thus, far from its supposed belligerent meaning, budo actually offers a didactic undertone.

Master Okazaki relates in one of his articles that budo does not mean to destroy your adversarv. But rather, we are to take an inner look within ourselves and see who our real adversary is. I will bet that your guess is right. “You” are your greatest adversary. There are always conflicts within us taking place most of the time. We often know what is good and bad, and sometimes yet, we do what we shouldn’t do.

It is the Training in Karate-do that teaches us to find peace within ourselves and as long as you do not find peace from within, you will not be able to offer peace also to other people. Being able to control the enemy within us will always be the path with no end. But still that is our purpose in Karate-do, to seek for the perfection of our character.

Seeking for perfection is a process and not an end in itself. For as long as we live, we will always be in that journey to seek perfection. It is my fervent wish that people study Karate as a budo.  And as long as we follow this, Karate will be a great contributor to world peace. This is the essence of Karate-do, and this is our way of life.