Kobujutsu

Bujutsu means the art of fighting – or more precisely, the art of fighting as it was exercised by the samurai in feudal Japan. They belonged to the warrior class.It was their responsibility to protect their sovereign family and to fight for them. They trained ceaselessly with many different weapons, and even trained regularly in many forms of weaponless fighting.

Bujutsu was almost totally forgotten in modern Japan. This occurred to such a degree that nowadays they primarily train in such budo arts as judo, aikido, kendo, karatedo, and so forth. Nonetheless, bujutsu constitutes the grounds upon which all the budo arts rest.

In many places, in old and well renown schools as well as amongst samurai families they still study the very effective principles and techniques that made the Japanese warrior so legendary. Following these methods, you too can train and study bujutsu/kobujutsu. Since there is a great risk of becoming injured when you train with weapons, our training is done through the practice of kata. That is to say it occurs according to predetermined schedules of movement.

At House of Samurai we train with bô and hanbô (long and short staff, respectively) as well as with tonfa, sai, and kama (peasant weapons from Okinawa). Tantô (knife), kodachi and katana (short and long sword) are also included as part of our training. In addition to this we also practice weaponless kata. Iaidô/iaijutsu, that is to say, the art of drawing the sword and attacking one’s enemy in the same movement is also practiced through katas, but directed towards a particular opponent whom you visualized. The katas we train come from both traditional kobujutsu and modern bujutsu. We strive to teach our students these katas in an unchanged and traditional manner.

Training traditional kobujutsu is fantastically interesting and instructive. It provides you with valuable insight that will help you understand Japanese society and culture.  Training kata is also a way to relax, and meditate. And it can be a means to personal development. But beyond this, for the modern practitioner who may see budo as a practical way of  learning self defense, bujutsu can be an enriching complement to ordinary training.