justsu and do arts (combat and way)

[Interloper]

... to follow the art of tea ceremony as a way of life,...

If your whole life surrounds Tea ceremonies, well of course the Do have another meaning.... It means that you're nuts.

People are allowed to interprete meaning into words just in the same way as you do with arts. But that doesn't mean that the word had that original meaning or that there is any kind of truth in your personal interpretation. IMHO Do and Jutsu are synonyms only. The only difference in meaning is what you make of it. And IMHO, it would be ridiculous to interprete judo as more "Do" than Jujutsu just because of the name.

Lol. I suppose that following any discipline as a way of life makes a person a bit "different" from the crowd.
But I came up in Japanese martial arts, and my (Japanese) teachers were the ones who described "Do" as a way of living. It stems from the schools of Zen Buddhism and Taoism that came from China, and were absorbed into the Japanese culture. This is how it was explained to me: Choose a discipline. Make it your path in life. The "truth" of life and existence will come to you as you practice your Way. In other words, it's a way of "becoming one with the Tao." As soon as you think about it, it ceases to be the Tao. So you just do, live and become what you practice, and that reconciles you with Nature.

Judo founder Jigoro Kano originally saw judo as a discipline that would polish the "flower of Japanese young manhood" -- a nationalistic movement that exploited the concept of "Do" for a right-wing agenda. That he did this does not corrupt the original intent of "Do." Anyone can commandeer a term and exploit it for their own purpose. That does not mean that the original concept does not still stand in its own right.

[edededed]

I think that in Japanese, "do" is just the typical suffix for martial arts, while "jutsu" sounds older and a bit more exotic.

"I practice kendo."
"Well, I practice kenjutsu."
"Oooo..."

[Interloper]

"Jutsu" implies not just the age, but the purpose of the system. "Do" implies that the purpose has been modified from practical "working" system to sport or art.
So...
Kenjutsu was what 17th-century samurai practiced to kill people with.
Kendo became the de-clawed sport-art that targets wrists and forearms with bamboo shinai instead of live blades slicing through neck arteries.

[edededed]

That's an implication since it is "new" vs. "old." Another implication is that "older is better."

But some "do" arts still use real swords - like iaido.
And then you have "karatedo," which just sort of got a "do" suffix to match the others (noone ever said "karatejutsu").
Also, I've never heard of anyone doing "kyujutsu" - it's always "kyudo."

[Interloper]

Not "better," just a different purpose.
Killing people isn't exactly a noble pursuit, but it was the job of the day. At the Meiji period, Kendo allowed people to symbolically transition the sword from an instrument whose sole purpose was to maim and kill, and turn it into a sport to cultivate nationalism, as judo was "de-escalated" from armored battlefield combatants' life-or-death methods into a cultivating sport.

Kyudo was developed as a form of zen meditation, with old archery methods adapted to the purpose. Archery skill was basic for foot soldiers back in the Warring Period, and was just part of the larger military tool kit. It also was one segment of entire clan combat systems that later became koryu (old school), so in and of themselves may not have had any special name. I'll have to look into that.

[edededed]

Sorry, let me clarify - back when, of course people practiced kyujutsu, along with kenjutsu, sojutsu, jujutsu, etc. I've just not heard of anyone practicing "kyujutsu" now, although there are still some schools of kenjutsu, sojutsu, jujutsu, and the like around.

[edededed]

Also - is "koryu" a noun? I seem to see it mainly as an adjective, i.e. "koryubujutsu" or "koryuikebana"
"Kobudo" seems to be a more popular word for the old schools in Japan.

[Interloper]

Oh - right. Kyudo is supposed to be one of those "zen inner development" arts I mentioned earlier. A path or "way" and moving meditation, etc. etc. as in Eugen Herigel (the "zen nazi") and "Zen in the Art of Archery."

[timfire]

Here's a quote from scholar and koryu practitioner Karl Friday on the subject (he's referring to Draeger's "Classical Budo"):

The problem with Draeger's point here is the underlying premises are mostly wrong--or wrong-headed. To begin with, the distinction between "budo" and "bujutsu" he makes is modern (mostly post-WWII) and analytical, not historical, and not even universally employed. With the exception of some of what Draeger called "modern cognate arts" or "gendai budo," most schools of Japanese martial art describe the elements that Draeger identifies as "budo" and "bujutsu" as interpenetrating and interdependent--that is, few schools accept a characterization as all (or even mostly) either "budo" or "bujutsu." Thus there never was a transformation process of "bujutsu" to "budo" (again, unless you mean by this the emergence of the "modern cognate" systems).

I've also argued that martial art in the form that we know it today--organized martial art or "ryuha bugei"--was about what we now think of as "budo" right from its inception. That is, it was always a specialized form of training aimed at broader self-developmental objectives, rather than simple technical proficiency in fighting (as Draeger posited). (See "Off the Warpath: Military Science & Budō in the Evolution of Ryūha Bugei." In Budo Perspectives, edited by Alexander Bennett, 249-68. Auckland, New Zealand: Kendo World Publications, 2005.) What happened during the Tokugawa period was not a fundamental shift of emphasis in terms of the purpose of martial art, but rather a deepening sophistication of the original purpose(s).

[Finny]

Sorry, let me clarify - back when, of course people practiced kyujutsu, along with kenjutsu, sojutsu, jujutsu, etc. I've just not heard of anyone practicing "kyujutsu" now, although there are still some schools of kenjutsu, sojutsu, jujutsu, and the like around.

there are still koryu kyujutsu schools extant - Heki ryu, iirc

[Interloper]

Also, there may still be kyujutsu training within some of the still-existing koryu that have a "complete" system of weapons, empty-hand, espionage and other methods from their clan's warfare days.

[Wuyizidi]

Also - is "koryu" a noun? I seem to see it mainly as an adjective, i.e. "koryubujutsu" or "koryuikebana"
"Kobudo" seems to be a more popular word for the old schools in Japan.

Ko 古: ancient
Ryu 流 (as in 流派): style, school

Traditional school, vs modern styles like Judo. What makes Judo and modern Wushu different is not just changes to sequencing of forms, the competition aspects, but also the way the curriculum is structured. They follow the modern public education model, with its progression of difficulty in skills, scientific teaching & training methods (especially when it comes to conditioning) etc. The original intent for changing the training this way are good. But of course due to faulty ways these ideas were implemented, many essential aspects (eg. martial aspects in Chinese martial art) can get lost.

In Chinese and Japanese, we don't change the spelling of the word when a noun is being used as adjudicative. Given the modular nature of the language, we just add the noun to the end, so it's "Canada citizen" instead of "Canadian citizen".

[Bao]

Lol. I suppose that following any discipline as a way of life makes a person a bit "different" from the crowd.
But I came up in Japanese martial arts, and my (Japanese) teachers were the ones who described "Do" as a way of living. It stems from the schools of Zen Buddhism and Taoism that came from China, and were absorbed into the Japanese culture.
This is how it was explained to me: Choose a discipline. Make it your path in life.

Yes, this is japanese mentality, it's there in chinese and other East-asian people as well. The japanese though are better to express these things in words and they might us a word as "do" to express the mentality of "all in" - dedicate your whole life to what you choose to do, sell your soul to your to your "sensei". But that has really nothing to do with "dao" as in Daoism. An "art" might be better to sell your soul for. Chinese tend to dedicate themselves for surface and luxury. Some women only eat the worst kind of instant noodles for months and months to be able to afford a Louis Vuitton bag. They get all kind of deceases, including stomach cancer on the run, but their dedication is complete. This is their "Do" - their way of life. Still, there are no other kind of values, no philosophy, no Daoism. The obsession for showing of with the hottest, most expensive luxury brand is total. It's the perfect example of a "Do".

The "truth" of life and existence will come to you as you practice your Way. In other words, it's a way of "becoming one with the Tao." As soon as you think about it, it ceases to be the Tao. So you just do, live and become what you practice, and that reconciles you with Nature.

How much people you can throw into the ground, how much Tea you can drink or how many Gucci or lV bags you can have, there's still is no truth of life and existence coming into to your life. Romanticing the Japanese mind is ok I guess, but to bring Daoism and philosophy into the term is, IMHO, just ridiculous. The Japanese "Do" arts are not even Daoist arts.

Judo founder Jigoro Kano originally saw judo as a discipline that would polish the "flower of Japanese young manhood" -- a nationalistic movement that exploited the concept of "Do" for a right-wing agenda. That he did this does not corrupt the original intent of "Do." Anyone can commandeer a term and exploit it for their own purpose. That does not mean that the original concept does not still stand in its own right.

I have no idea what Kano meant with the term. Today, 50% practice Judo for competition, 50% for sports and Exercise. No one cares about the philosophical aspects or how to use Judo to become one with the Dao. If there was any philosophical intention with the sport, it sure got trashed very early.

[Graculus]

The other thing about 'Do' arts is that they weren't meant to improve the individual for the individual's own sake; they were meant to help improve society. Japan was playing a catch-up game with the west, and sport and physical culture was one area in which they found themselves lacking. Kano (an educationalist) took the lead, and almost every 'Do' art that followed took some of that on board. Once Japan took up a militaristic agenda, 'Do' were seen to be perfect ways of instilling discipline into the youth of the day as a prelude to military training. This drill style instruction is still very visible in judo, and karate but was an anathema to the arts they descended from.

Perhaps it is no accident that Zen, with its stress on not thinking was also used for similar purposes, and the concept of 'Do', which is much more Neo-Confucian than anything else, was consciously aligned with Zen. (Neo-Conficianism actually encouraged learning and thinking in its more enlightened forms, and despite adoption as the state philosophy still produced many thinkers who had to be 'suppressed' or 'chastised' during the Tokugawa period).

Of course, the promotion of sports in the west also has links to many areas other than the personal enjoyment/well-being of the participants, as anyone who has slogged it out on a muddy rugby pitch in the middle of winter will tell you. 'Team spirit' was what they called it in my day.

Graculus
www.ichijoji.blogspot.com

[edededed]

Wuyizidi: Of course you are right about Chinese words and Chinese character words used in other languages like Japanese and Korean. I was rather wondering about the habitual usage of the word "koryu" in Japanese language - it seems that in English, "koryu" is often used as a noun, but I've not heard anyone use it that way in Japanese (but on the other hand, I am not a practitioner of such arts here).

In general, I get the feeling that "do" is just the norm now, and "jutsu" is for a very small group of maniacs who feel special and unique
Oh, and also video games and comics - "jutsu" is definitely preferred in those.