bu·do | “Bu” meaning martial or war | “do” meaning path or way. Japanese meaning for “Martial Way”
box·ing | The art of attack and defense using the fists, practiced as a sport.
bu·do box·ing | “The Way of Boxing”. My Interpretation. The journey of learning a skill that enlightened the way I looked at myself and the world around me.
What is Budo Boxing?
Budo boxing is where philosophy meets combat and combat meets philosophy. I truly love the name of my company, and I always get tons of questions about it. “What does Budo mean, why do you have a samurai in your logo and what does Japan have to do with boxing?” Those who care and do their research are quick to discover that there’s more meaning behind the word. I love the name of my company because it weeds out the bullshit that tends to come with boxing. Many people just want to look for companies named “Iron Boxing” or “Badassboxing” when in realty, boxing encompasses a martial art of the purest form and requires immense personal development.
Lets take my logo for instance. You won’t see boxing gloves or any punching. You might be asking yourself “what does a samurai have to do with boxing?” The goal of my logo was to convey that there is a martial approach to boxing, one that I discovered and created over many years. Boxing actually has a systematic approach to developing an individual. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t immediately start with getting punched in the face.
2 Parts of Budo Boxing
Take the Time to Build a Solid Foundation
To summarize boxing, you’ll first need to learn to stand, then walk, and finally run. People often overlook that and they immediately start running. Going backwards after that takes a tremendous amount of ego-checking, patience and humility. This is where many students often fall off, because the young men who get involved in boxing don’t always want to do things the slow, methodical way. Instead, they want to do things as quickly as possible with high intensity (ie; sparring as hard as they can every chance they get) thinking this is actually the meaning of fighting. No, to understand boxing you need to start off very slowly. Sparring should only be used to test your knowledge after honing in your skills. Otherwise you’ll be paying with braincells lost, bloody noses and black eyes.
Develop Grit
The other school of thought that is also vital to a fighter is the school of hard knocks. There’s no way you can do this type of sport without being tough. You need to be able to take a punch, keep pushing forward with grit and determination to win. You need to have the fighting spirit – the fire within you to press on when things are truly difficult in the ring. This realm is where most students operate.
Even though philosophy is absolutely necessary for fighting, its only one half of the equation. We can’t stay in La La Land pondering martial arts without realistic action. The fact of the matter is that you’ll only truly understand combat enlightenment at the end of a punch.
For example, Tai chi spends too much time in La La Land. I actually believe it could be a legit martial art if practiced at full speed, with full power combat engagement. I cant stand the guys that do martial arts and think they’re ‘too deadly’ to be practiced on another human being at full power. Yeah ok, bullshido artist. That’s where my basic boxing comes in and crushes your world. But again, same thing with boxers that think fighting is all about fighting and think there’s no system or philosophy in it. The philosophy is a part of the system but is only discovered post-combat. You can’t sit around talking about things you haven’t actually lived through. There’s nothing like putting yourself on the line during a real fight.
Budo Boxing: The Martial Art of Boxing
Budo Boxing stems from my belief that the sport of boxing is indeed a martial art of the purest form. When practiced properly, it has the ability to help any individual unlock tremendous personal development. Though often times, people only see boxing as a barbaric sport where one violently punches another, the true nature of this martial art and “way” lies in individual personal growth.
There are expressions in our society that get thrown around too frequently, and one I hear the most is that something is a “way of life”. Indeed, many different things can yield a variety of positive benefits, but those paths are still often too limiting. To say something is truly a way of life means that it has to represent all that life encompasses. This means it needs to include both the good and the bad. Additionally, it has to bring meaning and purpose that flows into all other areas of life as well. True martial arts have always been closely linked to enlightenment because their paths often involve a very long and difficult road, leading to mastery of a skill that parallels self-mastery.
An Actual Way of Life
Though there are various paths out there that we can follow for personal growth and development, true martial arts like boxing will always separate themselves due to their direct representation of what it means to be alive. A martial art like boxing has the ability to bring out true human potential through its difficult path of enlightenment. It combines body and mind along a journey of endless self-discovery that bares with it many universalities we all share. Things such as fear, struggle, pain, love, failure, humility, beauty, brutality, and countless other reflections of existence can be experienced if one follows this path and pays close attention. Only when something has those representations of life do I believe that it can truly be called a “way of life”. To have a passion is to find something worth suffering for. Boxing was my passion.
Boxing is a way of life; true martial arts are ways of life. They enrich our lives in ways other things simply cannot. It wasn’t until I followed the way of combat sports, like boxing, that I understood what that really meant.
Following the “Way”
Too many of us wander around day in day out lost without purpose or meaning in our lives. I believe this is because we don’t find the necessary ways to challenge and unlock our human potential. I know because I was one of those lost people looking for more in my life for a long time.
By taking that difficult first step down the path of pursuing boxing, I was eventually fortunate enough to discover a way that completely transformed every fiber of my being. My whole perception of myself changed the longer I dedicated my body, mind, and spirit to understanding the lessons that boxing provided. The longer I suffered through the difficulties, the more I found myself. I know I am not alone when I state boxing unknowingly changed me for the better. It’s changed many others, and I know it can do the same for many more.
The importance of following a path involving real martial arts for personal development is essential to our humanity. In a time that is so comfortable yet internally chaotic for many of us, I know any individual that willingly takes the difficult path of martial arts will greatly benefit themselves as individuals and society as a whole. Let us never forget the way of martial arts in our society, as their teachings may be even more crucial now for our prosperity than they were at any other point in history.
The Importance in Today’s World
We live in a world today where men are lost and everything is called “toxically masculine”. If young boys and men have no way of developing themselves or learning to channel their energy and express it in a healthy way, of course this is going to lead to a world full of lost men that are walking around all fucked up. I know because I was one of them. Without direction at home, at school or eventually the workplace, media influenced my thoughts and feelings. I walking around frustrated and angry 24/7 prior to discovering a boxing gym. Men need to vent and be humbled within the temple of combat arts to truly learn how to control themselves. Otherwise, others will control them, and this leads to violent outbursts and uncontrollable rage.
If more men were raised within the confines of a martial art, we would have less violence in the world. Men would learn to control themselves, and not be complete pushover simps. The way to do this is to get them comfortable with violence and combat, while also understanding the philosophy that comes afterward. Get your sons, brothers, fathers and every other man you know into a boxing program immediately. If you don’t want to do it for yourself, do it for the world.
We need martial arts now more than ever.
If you enjoy this blog, have any questions or suggestions for future posts, please don’t hesitate to contact me at budoboxing@gmail.com.
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