The Budo Difference

Most martial arts dojos in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) area either emphasize competition/sparring, or offer “traditional” training. Competition/sparring appears to offer a measure of quality. This is why many business-oriented studios emphasize it – It helps sales and makes students feel like they are learning and doing well. However, this is often an illusion. The very thing that is making students feel they are doing well is limiting their long-term potential (and possibly health), and giving them an incorrect measuring stick for understanding the potentially fathomless depths of martial arts training.

While sparring can be a useful training tool for higher ranked students under the right circumstances, emphasis on it, and particularly using sparring competition as a goal of training, has many negative effects which severely limit training quality. Part of what karate training does is teach the body a way to react that is not built-in, or innate. Sparring competition, instead of cultivating a highly effective, non-innate way to react in a self-defense situation, accentuates less effective, mostly innate skills and develops downright dangerous habits for self-defense. These include training only to react when ready, concentrating on only a single opponent, and relying only on punching and kicking or only on grappling depending on the martial arts style. Further, having competition as the goal often results in teachers, students and the style itself not looking out for the long-term health of the students.

Our style has a direct lineage and heritage that dates back several hundred years, and has been developed by masters who used it to defend themselves against individuals and groups, armed and unarmed...

At Budo, we do not train for competition or for sparring (although sparring is used occasionally in our high rank training). We instead train in a living martial art (Yamashita-Ha Kobayashi Shorin-Ryu Karate-Do) that has been developed with three purposes in mind: Self-Defense, Longevity/Health, and Life Improvement. Our style has a direct lineage and heritage that dates back hundreds of years, and has been developed by masters who used it to defend themselves against individuals and groups, armed and unarmed, and who lived fruitful, healthy fives well into their 80’s and beyond. This art has been passed down from master to master, generation to generation,

Our art encompasses much more than how to “win” at sparring, and benefits from generations more knowledge than one particular individual who has won a “World Championship”

with each subsequent master adding to the knowledge of the former masters. Our art encompasses much more than how to “win” at sparring, and benefits from generations more knowledge than one particular individual who has won a “Championship”. It contains and emphasizes those things needed to protect and improve your life, passed down by those who have personally benefited from the same things and led long, fruitful lives. At Budo, you can experience these benefits for yourself.

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The Difference from other “Traditional” Schools

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Okinawan Shorin-Ryu Karate-Do at Budo