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Message from The chief director of IBMA
“Communication” “Understanding” “Respect”
 The parent body of the International Budo-Man Association (IBMA) was inaugurated in 2000. In 2003, it received certification as a Non Profit Organization (NPO). Additionally, it holds an annual Way of Karate tournament.
As a result of the support we have received from a number of people, we have been able to continue our activities. We wish to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt gratitude to everyone who has provided such support. Thank you very much.
Beginning in 2011, we have radically reformed the activity policy of the International Budo-Man Association known as the IBMA.
Our new activity keywords are “communication,” “understanding,” and “respect.”
The intent of these keywords is to initiate heart-to-heart communication with people through martial arts. We wish to impart an understanding of the universal aspects that we all hold in common as human beings and to sympathise with each other on that basis.
And thus we aim to accept all differences in position and ability for the purpose of respecting each other as human beings.
Actually, there is an extremely broad variety of races, languages, and cultures on this planet Earth.
In a similar way we also have several unique cultures and traditions within martial arts.
While accepting those difference as interesting and significant, I feel strongly that human beings also hold many points in common.
If we can understand and accept our mutual universality, I am convinced that we can utilise it as a basis for communicating more positive solutions while avoiding confrontation and ultimately wars in general.
Also I am considering just how the keywords of “security” and “happiness” that express the universal aims of the human race as well as “violence” and “freedom” can best be addressed by martial arts people.
In other words, I think that when the human race attempts to grasp “security” or “happiness,” while involved in the promotion of science and the carrying out of economic activities, we must also face the problems of “violence” and “freedom”
I am considering what we as martial artists can do in the face of such aims and problems.
To begin with, we must consider these problems not only as things that have been received from or imposed upon us by others, rather, we should accept that these problems have been engendered by the problems and in the hearts of each and every individual person.
Our martial arts ancestors taught that, “If you come to know your opponent and come to know yourself, a hundred disputes will be avoided.”
In this context, I believe that in martial arts it is necessary for us to recognise not only the true essence and actual conditions which define our enemies and others but those that define ourselves.
What I consider the ultimate aim of martial arts is not to defeat your opponent, but rather to affect a full vivification of both your opponent and yourself.
I believe that this is the true meaning of “winning.”
Thus I think that the role of the martial arts at the present time is to nurture the ideal of each individual, thus vivifying the heart and soul of both himself and his opponent, and to convey this message to others.
To state this in another way, martial arts do not consist of the power to destroy others, as is the case with military force, but they are ways to cultivate the power to vivify both oneself and others.
There are numerous martial arts theories, but this is what I believe about the martial arts.
What I refer to as a “Budo-Man” is a person who understands the martial arts in the manner that I have explained above, and who aims toward making martial arts a bridge between nation and nation.
I sincerely hope that, not only the lovers of ultimate Karate, but also the lovers of all types of Karate and all other combative sports will become members of our IBMA (International Budo-Man Association).
Akira Masuda
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