Aikibudo

While many students of the martial arts may be familiar with Aikido, the name Aikibudo is less common. Superficially there are many similarities between JFANW’s take on Aikibudo and Aikido, but we feel that Aikibudo is a better way to describe what we do. Primarily based on the material we learned as part of the Icho Ryu private instructor dojo of Neil Yamamoto, Aikibudo combines aspects of Aikido, Aikijujutsu, Aiki weapons work (sword, staff, knife), Judo, and striking. In very simple terms, Aikibudo differs from most Aikido in that the practitioner is explicitly learning to control and potentially injure their attacker. Rather than throw opponents outwards or “use their force against them” as is taught in Aikido, we aim to compromise our opponent and throw them downward so that they can be restrained or prevented from continuing the conflict. We have chosen to let go of the name Icho Ryu as Bernie Lau has resumed teaching and awarding rank with that name and we feel that what we do is very different than what is now being taught under that name. Rather than found a goshin ryu-ha (formal non-Japanese school) we chose to simply call what we do “Aikibudo” which the term Neil Yamamoto preferred to use to describe his art.