A feudal era Japanese samurai quote really explains the difference. "You must concentrate upon and consecrate yourself wholly to each day, as though a fire were raging in your hair." This is believed to contain the essence of what Taisen Deshimaru, a Zen master, means by saying, "To practice Zen, or the martial arts, you must live intensely, wholeheartedly, without reserve - as if you might die in the next instant. Lacking this sort of commitment, Zen becomes mere ritual and the martial arts devolve into mere sport."
Today is not then, it is now. What does this mean when you attempt to describe or classify a system of pugilistic endeavor as either budo or sport? You have to take into the current culture and belief system that you would apply the techniques and spirit of the system. I would take California as my source for it is where I live and is also a sub-culture of the entire Western region called the United States.
In California "fighting" is "illegal." No ifs, and's or but's it is illegal. If you get into a fight you are going to be prosecuted. There are rules and by definition, in my mind that is, once you impose rules your no longer in the realm of budo. I am not talking about self-imposed rules such as you will not take life or you are willing to take life but rather those rules imposed by the society, their culture and their beliefs.
Budo may not be an available definition to any martial system today unless you try to orient that toward the military and then only in combat but is that true budo would be the question as many other factors get involved. One sure fire way is to determine if it is viable and used in actual hand-to-hand combat in a combat zone.
Also, the question begs do you allow it the moniker of budo only after it has been tested in combat, not street fighting cause as said there are imposed rules, and do you apply it to the individual practitioner only after they apply or have applied it in combat?
We can go on and on with this discussion but lets get back to the spirit of budo. That means to my mind fighting be it civilly or militarily. If it is meant to provide adequate techniques and spirit to combat a determined opponent who means to do you grievous harm or even death then it is budo. All other things are mostly governed by "rules" whereby it is "sport."
Now the question, who can say it is actually budo. Again, my view is that it has been proven by someone with the experience that it works then it becomes a matter of when it works for you whereby you personally validate the effectiveness of the system - not once, not twice but at least five separate times it is used effectively in combat, either civilly or militarily.
One more thing, we know that the originally traditional Uchinadee or Okinawa Hand was effective in combative applications but the true question for today is are those then effective applications effective in today's world? You might say yes readily enough but take this one point first before answering, are those techniques viewed today as "legal" in application.
Example: In the military in combat you may shoot and hit the enemy as you advance and it maybe perfectly legal according to articles of war to do one more kill shot as you pass when the enemy is on the ground and apparent not a threat and still be legal. If you use this in a civil situation that extra shot even for a police person could be illegal and prosecuted.
Isn't is great that the best defense in any situation is avoidance closely followed be deescalation? Isn't it great that in the scheme of the yin-yang of life and practice that the effort we put into our practice and training has so many more great personal and societal benefits whereby applying them on the street is mostly not necessary or even required - mostly.
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