Never in its history has budo, the martial way, prospered so much as it has in the three decades that have passed since the end of World War II. Today many different kinds of combat techniques are taught in many place throughout the world. But I am puzzled by at least one aspect of this phenomenon: among the styles of budo currently fashionable, there are things that can on no account be considered combat techniques. Because television and the motion pictures carelessly pass off any kind of fighting as oriental martial arts, I find myself at a loss to know what the word budo means today. But, leaving the question of quality aside, I can say that it is a good thing that many people are now learning the martial arts in one form or another and are putting into practice in their own lives and ways of thinking some of the good points of budo.Nonetheless, it is wrong to sacrifice or distort the true nature or the content of the combat techniques solely for the sake of introducing them to larger numbers of people. It is true that each age must develop its own interpretation of budo, but such interpretations must not diverge from the basic nature of the martial way. And I believed that budo as taught today can often be said to have gone too far.
