Japanese Martial Arts Styles: The Old and the New
There are a seemingly-bewildering number of different martial arts styles. If you're looking at the various Japanese styles though, you may notice a peculiar thing: the names of almost all of them end either in "
do" or "
jutsu." This is because there are two basic categories of Japanese martial arts.
To understand why the Japanese martial arts are divided into two basic categories -- "
koryu budo" and "
gendai budo" -- you must go back to the time of the Meiji Restoration. It's all but impossible to overestimate the effect that the Meiji Restoration of 1868 had upon Japanese society. In a single generation, Japan went from a feudalistic society to a modern, industrialized state. In an attempt to emulate the obvious successes of the industrialized Western powers, Emperor Meiji ordered the abolition of the samurai class and initiated a more or less deliberate campaign to eradicate "traditional" Japanese culture (seen as "inefficient" and "outdated" compared to Western European/American culture), so that it could be replaced by more "modern" Western notions.
To say the least, not all Japanese were pleased by these changes, but it was widely recognized that there wasn't much practical use for hand-to-hand fighting techniques in an age when battles were fought with guns and artillery, rather than swords. Still, many Japanese resented the devaluation of their own cultural and philosophical traditions, and revolted against the attempts to eradicate those traditions in the name of "modernization." So, many of the traditional martial arts styles were re-worked and taught to students not as practical fighting techniques, but as a means of preserving traditional Japanese culture and values. Students were encouraged to study these new martial arts styles in order to keep alive the philosophical beliefs that had shaped Japan's samurai warriors, and as means of self-improvement.
The older martial arts styles that predated the Meiji Restoration are generally known as
koryu budo, which roughly translates as "old school martial arts." These styles were/are taught as actual combat techniques. Martial arts styles that postdate the Meiji Restoration are generally known as
gendai budo ("modern martial arts").
As a rule, you can easily tell the orientation of a given martial arts style by its name. The names of
koryu bodu almost always end in "
jutsu" or "
jitsu," which roughly translates as "art." The names of
gendai budo almost always end in "do," which means "way." So,
kenjutsu ("sword art"), for instance, is about learning how to fight with a sword, while
kendo ("way of the sword") is about learning self-discipline through mastery of the "sword." Similarly,
jujutsu ("gentle art" -- an ironic name if there ever was one) is a style of unarmed combat in which one learns to employ techniques that will dislocate joints and break bones.
Judo ("the gentle way"), by contrast, is taught as a sport, not a combat style, even though it's derived from jujutsu.
Introduction
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