Japanese Martial Arts: The Disciplines and Where to Try Them

The first thing you notice in a kendo hall is the noise. Forty people shouting from the stomach, bamboo swords cracking against armor, bare feet slamming a wooden floor that has been polished by exactly this for decades. The second thing you notice is that nobody is angry. The shouting is part of the technique, and the whole room is completely calm underneath it.

Japanese martial arts fall into two broad families: the older bujutsu, combat systems developed by the samurai class, and the modern budo, the disciplines reworked in the last 150 years around character and practice rather than killing. Judo, kendo, karate, aikido, and kyudo are the ones you will encounter, and most of them welcome visitors who want to watch or try a session.

Sword Fighting

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Bujutsu and budo: what the split means

Bujutsu means the martial technique itself, developed when it had to work on a battlefield. Kenjutsu, jujutsu, and kyujutsu were practical systems taught within schools tied to particular clans.

Budo replaced the final syllable with do, meaning way or path, and the change was deliberate. When the samurai class was abolished in the 1870s and carrying swords was banned, these systems either disappeared or were reformed into something practiced for its own sake. Kenjutsu became kendo, jujutsu became judo, kyujutsu became kyudo.

That is why a modern dojo spends so much time on posture, breathing, and etiquette. The point of the practice shifted from winning a fight to the discipline of doing the thing properly.

Kendo and the sword arts

Jujutsu and Judo

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Kendo is fought with a shinai, a bamboo sword, in armor covering the head, torso, hands, and hips. Points are scored on four target areas, and a strike only counts if the footwork, the cut, and the kiai shout all land together. A technically clean hit with a flat voice does not score, which tells you what the sport values.

It is the most widely practiced traditional art in Japan, taught in schools, universities, and police departments. The All Japan Kendo Championships each November fill an arena.

Iaido is the sword art without an opponent: drawing, cutting, and resheathing a live blade in precise sequences from a seated or standing start. It is slow, exacting, and closer in feel to calligraphy than to combat.

Kenjutsu survives in a number of classical schools that still teach paired forms with wooden swords, some tracing continuous transmission back several centuries.

Judo

Judo was founded in 1882 by Jigoro Kano, who took the throwing and grappling techniques of jujutsu, removed the ones that maimed people, and built a system that could be practiced at full intensity without injury. That single decision is why judo spread worldwide and most jujutsu schools did not.

Kano's principles were maximum efficiency with minimum effort, and mutual benefit. Judo entered the Olympics at the 1964 Tokyo Games.

Zen Archery

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Kyudo

Kyudo is Japanese archery, and the target is almost beside the point. The shot is broken into eight formal stages, and a practitioner is judged on the correctness of the whole sequence rather than only on whether the arrow lands.

The bow is asymmetric, over two meters tall, and gripped about a third of the way up, a shape unique to Japan. Watching a kyudo session is the quietest thing on this list and one of the more striking.

Karate

Kodokan

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Karate did not originate in mainland Japan. It developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom, now Okinawa, blending indigenous fighting methods with Chinese systems that arrived through trade. The Ryukyu ban on weapons is often cited as the reason it developed as an empty-hand art, and the name itself means empty hand.

It reached mainland Japan in the 1920s, largely through Gichin Funakoshi, who demonstrated it in Tokyo and founded the school that became Shotokan. Okinawa still has its own lineages that differ noticeably from the mainland styles, and a trip there is the serious karate pilgrimage.

Aikido

Aikido

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Morihei Ueshiba developed aikido in the first half of the twentieth century from older jujutsu systems, and built it around redirecting an attacker's force rather than opposing it. There are no competitions in most aikido organizations, which is unusual and deliberate.

Ueshiba built the Aiki Shrine at Iwama in Ibaraki Prefecture, and it remains the spiritual center of the art, with an outdoor dojo beside it and an annual festival each spring.

Sumo, which sits apart

Sumo is not classified with the budo disciplines and is not something visitors practice. It is a professional sport with a religious frame, and the ring-entering ceremonies, the salt throwing, and the referee's costume all come from Shinto rather than from combat training.

Six fifteen-day tournaments run each year, in Tokyo in January, May, and September, Osaka in March, Nagoya in July, and Fukuoka in November. Chair seats start around ¥3,500 and a limited number of same-day general admission tickets sell at the venue for about ¥2,200 if you queue early.

Outside tournament season, some stables allow visitors to watch morning practice. It is quieter and stricter than a tournament: you sit still on the floor, stay silent, and do not leave partway through.

Naginata, jujutsu, and the smaller arts

Naginata uses a long pole weapon with a curved blade, historically associated with women of the samurai class defending a household. It is still practiced competitively and is one of the more visually distinctive arts.

Jujutsu in its classical form survives in koryu schools that predate judo, teaching joint locks, throws, and weapon disarms as paired forms rather than as competition.

Shorinji Kempo, founded in 1947, blends striking and grappling with a philosophical program, and has a large following in Japan that visitors rarely encounter.

Bojutsu and kobudo, the Okinawan weapon arts using staff, sai, and nunchaku, developed alongside karate and are taught together with it in Okinawa.

Where to see martial arts in Japan

The Kodokan, Tokyo

Martial Arts

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The Kodokan in Bunkyo is where judo began, now an eight-story institute with training halls, dormitories, and a museum. You can watch practice for free from the spectator gallery on the eighth floor on weekdays and Saturdays between 16:30 and 19:30, with no reservation needed. The second-floor museum is also free, open weekdays from 11:00 to 18:00.

It is the single best free thing in Tokyo for anyone interested in this, and almost no visitors know about it.

Nippon Budokan

Built for the 1964 Olympic judo competition in Kitanomaru Park, the Budokan hosts the major national championships across several arts. Checking the schedule before a trip is worth doing, since a championship day is a completely different experience from a dojo visit.

Noma Dojo

Noma Dojo in Tokyo is among the most respected kendo halls in the country, a traditional wooden building that has trained generations of practitioners. Access for outside visitors is limited and arranged rather than casual.

The Aiki Shrine, Iwama

Roughly two hours north of Tokyo in Ibaraki, the shrine and its dojo are a pilgrimage for aikido practitioners. Quiet, rural, and not set up for casual tourism, which is part of the appeal.

Martial Arts Schools in Japan

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Can tourists try martial arts in Japan?

Yes, and the options have grown. Introductory sessions aimed at visitors typically run 60 to 90 minutes for ¥5,000 to ¥10,000, with equipment provided and instruction in English.

What you get varies sharply. A genuine dojo will spend most of the session on stance, footwork, and etiquette, and you will leave having learned two things properly. A costume-and-photo operation will hand you a sword and a camera angle. Look at how the session is described: the ones that mention basics, forms, and a formal bow at the start are the real ones.

A samurai sword experience in Tokyo teaching Mugai-ryu iaido is the most accessible way to try the sword arts properly, since iaido works solo and does not require a partner or armor.

Longer options exist for people who already train. Several dojo accept visiting practitioners for a mat fee of ¥1,000 to ¥3,000 per session, and some run week-long seminars. Bring your own gi and, for kendo, expect to be asked about your grade.

Watching competitions and ceremonies

Martial Arts Competition and Event

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The competition calendar is worth planning around. The All Japan Kendo Championships run in November, the All Japan Judo Championships in spring, and kyudo and naginata hold their own national events.

Shrine demonstrations are the other option and cost nothing. Many shrines host martial arts displays at their annual festivals, including yabusame, archery from a galloping horse, which is performed at Tsurugaoka Hachimangu in Kamakura and at several other shrines through the year.

How martial arts shaped modern Japan

Noma Dojo

Budo is compulsory in Japanese middle schools, where students take judo, kendo, or sumo. Police officers train in judo or kendo throughout their careers. The vocabulary of the dojo, particularly around discipline and repetition, runs through Japanese workplaces and schools well beyond martial arts.

The influence abroad came mostly through film. Kurosawa's samurai pictures gave the world its image of the swordsman, and the postwar spread of judo and karate put Japanese terms into a dozen languages. Anime and games kept it going for a generation that never saw a Kurosawa film.

Practical notes for visitors

Remove your shoes at the entrance and bow when you step onto the mat. Photography is often restricted during practice, so ask first. Do not walk across the front of the dojo where the shrine or the founder's portrait sits.

Sessions for visitors are easiest to find in Tokyo dojos, though Okinawa is the place to go specifically for karate.

Kyoto has a smaller but serious scene, and our Kyoto city guide covers getting around it.

If you are combining this with other traditional practice, a kimono and tea ceremony session in Kyoto draws on the same ideas about form and repetition.

Our piece on Japanese astronomy and the seasons covers another strand of the same worldview.

For a trip built around this, bookable traditional experiences lists what else can be booked.

A route such as two weeks between Tokyo and Kyoto leaves room for a dojo morning in each city.