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.

Every summer I make the trip to the annual conference of the Japanese Academy of Budo. In English the acronym comes out as JAB, which is pleasingly martial, but after that one mention I prefer to call it what everyone else does: the Budo Gakkai. It is Japan’s primo organisation dedicated to scholastic inquiry into budo culture. Many of the members are university professors, but membership is not restricted to academics; coaches, teachers, and the general enthusiasts are welcome too. Here is the English page of the Budo Gakkai.

The Budo Gakkai was founded in 1968, four years after the Tokyo Olympics where judo made its official debut and ignited a national budo boom. From then on, parents were eager to get their children into a dojo. It was really the start of the postwar golden era for budo.

Shōriki Matsutarō, the president of the Budokan at the time and a man who rarely thought small, insisted that if budo were to shape the next generation it needed teachers of the highest quality. Teachers, he argued, required academic foundations as well as practical skill. Out of that reasoning came the Budo Gakkai: a scholarly society where budo could be studied, debated, and granted intellectual legitimacy. As the founding statement put it, “Taking into consideration the growing interest in budo both in Japan and abroad, the sudden increase in practitioners, the emphasis on budo in school education, the establishment of specialist university courses, and the rising number of scholars in the field, it is crucial that an academic society be created for the proper dissemination of budo.”

The first conference was held at the Budokan itself, complete with a symposium on “The Concept of Budo.” From then on, the formula stuck: a mix of free papers where researchers present their latest findings; and themed symposia and panel discussions about the role and meaning of budo in contemporary society. The topics tell their own story. Some years the focus is on budo in schools, others on how to balance modernisation with tradition, some on budo’s international spread, or how to promote martial arts in local communities. The questions are never fully resolved, but the point is in the asking.

By the 1980s the Gakkai was doing quite well for itself and everybody wanted to present their stuff to the world. But from the 1990s the conference started losing momentum. From that time, so-called “Specialist Subcommittees” (Senmon Bunka-kai) were established for each budo: judo, kendo, karate, kyudo, Shorinji Kempo, naginata, and budo for people with disabilities. (Well, not quite each budo, but we’re getting there). In any case, this is where researchers branch off after the main presentation event and have a special mini-seminar related to their specialist budo.

The Japanese Academy of Budo puts out a refereed journal called the Research Journal of Budo (武道学研究) (mostly in Japanese except for abstracts). It’s where you’ll find original articles, reviews, research materials, and research notes, all put through a strict peer-review process. The journal comes out twice a year, with a bound print volume produced once annually, and everything is also published online through the J-STAGE platform, so you can dive into the entire archive. On top of that, during the annual Budo Gakkai conference, a special issue called Abstracts of Research Presentations (研究発表抄録) is printed, and if the meeting doubles as an international congress, a Proceedings volume follows. I sit on the editorial committee for the journal, which means I get a front-row seat to some of the most interesting research being done in the world of budo today.

https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/browse/budo/57/2/_contents/-char/en

Today the Budo Gakkai has about 850 members, more than a hundred of them women (still very lopsided, but it’s changing slowly), and the number of papers is around a hundred a year. It’s not just a forum for budo nuts. Publishing and presenting with the Budo Gakkai also serves a practical career function. For graduate students, the Gakkai provides an important venue to test their thesis ideas in front of a critical audience. The time slots are strict (twelve minutes for the paper, three minutes for questions) and there is no wriggle room. Chairs will cut you off mid-sentence if you go over, which makes it excellent practice in focus and clarity. For university teachers, meanwhile, presenting and publishing through the Gakkai is a way of keeping their academic profiles up. Japan isn’t quite as brutal about “publish or perish” as some countries, but it is important to be seen presenting at conferences and to have your name in the journal. 

The rhythm of the annual conference is familiar. It is held at a different university each year. This year it happens to be at Hosei University’s Tama campus on the western fringe of Tokyo. Before that, it has travelled the length and breadth of Japan, from Hokkaido down to Kyushu. Wherever it lands, the atmosphere is the same: the lobby buzzing with greetings, colleagues reuniting, graduate students looking terrified, and stacks of abstract booklets being handed out. The first of two days unfolds in a rhythm of tightly timed presentations, occasional flashes of brilliant insight, and the odd drowsy lull in the morning. After that comes a specially organised keynote lecture and a mini-symposium or panel discussion in the afternoon.

Later it’s “Dai-ni dojo” time, with beer and budo banter. Japan even has a hybrid word, “nommunication” (from nomu, to drink, and communication), to describe the curious blend of drinking and talking that oils the wheels of social life. The Gakkai thrives on it. The evening gatherings are as much a part of the conference as the presentations. Over drinks, hierarchies dissolve, stern professors become raconteurs, and information that never makes it into official papers is traded with cheerful frankness. It is there, in the laughter and the gossip, that the human fabric of the society is woven!

The next day, somewhat blurry-eyed, we return to the venue for more presentations followed by the Specialist Subcommittee gatherings. Everything is usually wrapped up by three o’clock on the Sunday, and we all head back to the fluorescent glow of our day jobs.  

I’ve sat through my share of all of the above. Some presentations really sparkle, others are death by PowerPoint. But the point is that the Budo Gakkai provides a stage, and that stage matters! It keeps budo within the orbit of serious academic debate rather than letting them drift off into folklore or pure hobbyism. You do learn how to question what you are doing, why you are doing it, and how it fits into the wider world, an exercise in bunbu ryōdō, the brush and sword in accord.

At any Budo Gakkai conference the presentations are grouped under academic fields such as “Humanities and Social Sciences”, “Natural Sciences”, “Budo Pedagogy”, “Poster Sessions”, “Symposia and Keynotes”. Each one has it’s own designated venue or classroom. Some of the titles this year that interested me included a study of prewar school legislation on kendo and judo in the “Humanities and Social Sciences” section, an exploratory look at head impact exposure in judo in the “Natural Sciences,” and an analysis of junior high school kendo teaching methods using generative AI since 2017 in the “Budo Pedagogy” stream. The “Poster Sessions” bring work like an investigation into injury rates in karate competition, while the “Symposium” this time took up the theme of diversity in keiko, with a focus on embodiment in online practice and teaching. The “Keynote Lecture” was a fascinating topic in which the speaker talked about the creation of “e-Budo” as a way of realising “mutual prosperity” through e-sports science. With so many parallel sessions taking place, it’s impossible to see everything; you have to scan the programme carefully, make your choices, and flit between classrooms to catch the talks that matter most to you.

As an aside, the fiftieth conference in 2017 was held at Kansai University, and I was the one tasked with organising it. On paper, it looked like a straightforward job: book the lecture halls, arrange the translations, herd presenters into their time slots, make sure the university’s budo club students were actually helping rather than getting in the way, and make sure the banquet had enough beer.

In practice, it was more like trying to conduct an orchestra with missing scores and an overenthusiastic percussionist. Somehow it worked. We brought together specialists across different budo, staged symposia that crossed boundaries, and welcomed international colleagues to a proper exchange. For a few days Kansai University became the crossroads of budo research. Looking back, I realise how much that experience deepened my appreciation of what the Gakkai does, an appreciation I might not have had if I had only ever been a participant.

The Budo Gakkai is not glamorous, but it is indispensable. It is where graduate students cut their teeth, where teachers keep their CVs alive, and where colleagues reconnect. It is also where budo people as a whole are forced to articulate themselves, to explain their value beyond the dojo. Crucially, it allows people from different budo to cross-pollinate, to look at martial culture as a whole rather than only within their own art, and to keep tabs on the zeitgeist of the times. Without it, budo in Japan might risk drifting into self-satisfaction or nostalgia. With it, the questions remain open, uncomfortable, and IMHO, vital.

If you want to become a member of the Academy of Budo, the process is fairly straightforward but you do need a recommendation from someone who is already a member. After that, you fill out an application form and pay the annual membership fee. Once accepted, you can attend and present at the annual conference. As I said, it’s not just for professors or researchers. Teachers, coaches, and practitioners with an academic interest in martial arts are also welcome. The real value is in joining a community that brings together people from many fields such as history, philosophy, pedagogy, and sports science. It gives you the chance to share your own work, learn from others, and take part in the broader conversation about the study and practice of budo today.

For the past twelve years, a full turn of the zodiac, I have served as a Director on the Budo Gakkai’s board, and though my tenure is coming to an end, the Gakkai will remain woven into both my professional and private life, keeping that brush and sword in accord. (Details for becoming a member here.)