Budo Beat 33: Full Circle
Reflecting on almost four decades with the International Budo University
The “Budo Beat” Blog features a collection of short reflections, musings, and anecdotes on a wide range of budo topics by Professor Alex Bennett, a seasoned budo scholar and practitioner. Dive into digestible and diverse discussions on all things budo—from the philosophy and history to the practice and culture that shape the martial Way.
I’m writing this from Katsuura, a small coastal city on the Bōsō Peninsula of Chiba. The air here is thick with salt and fish. Or is that just the pungent aroma of sweaty IBU students? Probably all of the above, but it’s a very familiar smell to me now. I make the trip down from Kyoto over ten times a year. Being a six or seven-hour haul by train, it’s long enough to feel like a small pilgrimage. But there’s always that sense of returning to a place that has in many ways shaped my life.
The town of Katsuura. At first glance it’s just a fishing town of around 16,000. At second glance it’s still a fishing village, but with a very budo flavour. Its morning market, one of the oldest in Japan, is a noisy riot of voices of locals and tourists. Katsuura is also often described as one of the “coolest” summer climates in Japan. I beg to differ! There is no cool summer climate in Japan. But it’s very cool to be here. Not much changes in Katsuura, and that’s why I like it.
This week I’m here to teach International Budo University graduate classes. I’ve been making these trips for years, and yet it still amuses me to think that so many moons ago, when I was nineteen, I seriously tried to enrol at IBU (aka Budai) as a regular student, but it was not to be. That was in 1989. I had just returned to Japan determined to live only for budo. The Nippon Budokan had staged the first International Seminar for Budo Culture in Katsuura. It was there I discovered IBU. A whole university devoted to budo! One thing led to another, and I ended up making Katsuura my home for the good part of a year as a non-degree student. In those days, they didn’t have the international Bekka Budo Specialisation programme that they do today. (You can check out the details here.)
Training with the best senseis in Japan, classes with esteemed professors, seaside living, cold beers… (As a side note for those who know the IBU, Iwakiri-sensei had just graduated and was in his first year as a very bushy tailed junior teacher there. It’s because of his ‘enthusiasm’ that I can’t really stomach sake! I still wince at the memory even now.)
In any case, Budai had everything I wanted. Seeing that I was well and truly in my element, one of the professors asked if I’d like to become a “proper” fulltime student, enrol for four years, and graduate with a degree in budo. I didn’t hesitate. “Of course I bloody do.”
He took the idea to the faculty meeting. After some discussion, the answer came back: the university wasn’t quite ready to accept an international student. I was devastated. I mean, what’s the point of having “International” in IBU if they couldn’t accommodate a young, keen, Japanese speaking gaisam (gaijin samurai). Instead, I got a polite “Sorry young fella, seems we’re just not ready for you.” At the time it felt like rejection. Looking back, it was simply that the university itself was still too young to make that leap, even if I was.
These days things are very different. Budai now has a Bekka Specialisation programme for international students. Many readers of this blog may have joined it themselves, and if so, you’ll know what I was after back then: structured study, full immersion in the dojo, and the bracing air of Katsuura. I was just a little ahead of my time ;)
Despite the initial setback, I never cut ties. I’ve been coming back many times a year ever since. Sometimes for lectures, sometimes for research meetings and seminars, sometimes for teaching. Over time the relationship deepened, and today I serve as Executive Director of the IBU’s Budo & Sports Research Institute. The same place that once told me they weren’t ready for me as a student now has me thinking about how to shape its research programmes. Oh, the irony of it all.
The university itself is still a relatively young institution, founded in 1984. Its roots lie in the vision of Matsumae Shigeyoshi, an engineer, politician, and educator who also founded Tokai University. Matsumae-sensei believed that Japan’s future depended not only on technological and industrial progress but also on the projection of its culture.
For him, budo was not just sport or combat. It was education of the whole person: body, mind, and spirit. He believed that by nurturing this, Japan could share something valuable with the world. Out of this conviction came the idea for a university entirely devoted to budo based on the following founding precepts:
“Young men and women, through budo, gain an unshakable outlook on life. Through budo, embrace a vision of peace. Through budo, strengthen your body. Through budo, learn patience and respect. And with the spirit of budo education, build a path of international friendship.”
In this age of AI, his vision seems to be more relevant than ever before, more perhaps that we can ever imagine. From the start Budai was designed as more than a sports college. It integrated training with scholarship: history, philosophy, pedagogy, and international exchange. The goal was to cultivate graduates who would contribute to society as teachers, coaches, researchers, and ambassadors of budo. This is still the ethos of the place, but as is often the case, the ideal and the reality don’t always match up perfectly.
At present Budai has around 1,200 undergraduates and a growing graduate school. Students belong to clubs for most budo disciplines: kendo, judo, kyudo, naginata, karate, aikido, iaido and more. Even the non-budo sports are taught and practised with the same seriousness of spirit. Actually, Budai has a very good baseball team, and other sports like soccer, basketball and volleyball seem to garner a little more traction than budo itself.
Like other universities in Japan, Budai is wrestling with the demographic reality of the dreaded “shōshika problem”; that is, the steady decline in the youth population that makes attracting students more challenging each year. At the same time, budo, once considered a natural part of school life and almost a rite of passage, is no longer the default choice for many young Japanese (or their parents). The commitment, discipline, and sweat that budo requires can feel out of step with a generation that has so many other options competing for their time and energy. Budai is therefore caught in a double bind: adapting to a shrinking student body while also trying to reimagine budo in ways that remain meaningful and appealing to today’s youth.
Back in my day, the Budai campus was never quiet. The kendo club itself had around 500 members. (There are about 50 or 60 today). Dojo doors banged open, loud kiais echoed across the grounds, and the sound of shinai clashing, bodies slamming into the tatami was constant. It really was a university that trained both muscle and mind, and you could see it in the students’ faces as they staggered out of keiko, drenched and half-smiling, on their way to yet another class. Those really were wonderful days.
Over the years, Budai has produced generations of instructors. Many of its graduates now teach in schools across Japan, embedding budo into the PE curriculum. A handful of others have gone abroad, helping spread martial arts internationally. (Abe Tetsushi in Hungary is a notable example of this.) Some have become leading scholars in the field. The Bekka programme has welcomed international students in their hundreds... It has gone a fair way in living up to Matsumae Shigeyoshi's lofty ideals, but there is so much more that needs to be done.
When I wrapped up my time here as a young would-be student, I thought I should leave the teachers something by way of thanks. I didn’t have money, and my Japanese was still half-baked, so I wrote a haiku. Of sorts. You may have noticed by now that I like poetry and often include verse about budo in my blogposts. This one’s mine! One afternoon I’d looked up and seen a hawk gliding through the bitter winter wind. It looked rather majestic, and for some reason it struck me as budo distilled into feathers. So, I scribbled it down then brushed ito onto a sheet of rice paper:
木枯らしに たかが静かに 飛んでいる
(Kogarashi ni taka ga shizuka ni tonde iru)
“Against the winter wind, the hawk flies silently.”
I handed it over with what I thought was great solemnity. The teachers nodded politely, which in Japan can mean anything from “this is profound” to “please don’t quit your day job.” And then the haiku vanished. I’ve no idea where it went. Maybe it was tacked up on a noticeboard, maybe it lined the bottom of a budo gear bag, maybe it was recycled into scratch paper for the training schedule. Wherever it ended up, it didn’t soar quite as far as the hawk that inspired it. Still, that small episode lingers with me whenever I return.
These trips from Kyoto to Katsuura have become part of my own budo. Six hours on the road gives me time to think. Sometimes I write, sometimes I doze off, sometimes I just stare out the window and wonder where that damned haiku ended up.
At nineteen I thought I needed everything at once. Now I know that the real practice is showing up again and again, year after year, building something that lasts. So no, I never became an undergraduate here. But Budai has been part of my life for nearly forty years, and every trip reminds me that budo is less about sudden breakthroughs than about persistence, rhythm, and continuity. The university has evolved, Katsuura has stood still, and I’ve certainly aged. Yet the bond remains, and over time it has become a kind of barometer of my own progress. There is no way I could ever have imagined, back when I first arrived here, how much this place was going to mean to me.
(PS: The book advertised below was based on “what I wish I knew” when I was starting my life in budo as a young man. I had to work it all out for myself, but Budai helped in so many ways.)
Good stuff!
I love this piece, but one thing jumped out at me, something that keeps me awake at night, you said, 'Budai is therefore caught in a double bind: adapting to a shrinking student body while also trying to reimagine budo in ways that remain meaningful and appealing to today’s youth'. The reimagining has also to come to terms with the changing of culture (not just youth culture). Budo people I have spoken to seem to have real trouble explaining what they do. Outside of platitudes and generalities the language fails to take into account the dilemmas brought about by new media. Fortunately, conversations are now starting to happen. I genuinely don't know the answer to this, as things are unfolding so fast. One thing I am convinced about though is that Budo is a project worth investing in.