The Bushido Code, and the Other Codes of the Martial Arts

The bushido code is the best-known code of the martial arts, but it is not the only one. Almost every fighting tradition has one. Japan has bushido. Thailand has the wai kru. Judo has two short principles. Boxing has a set of rules signed off by a marquess. In the Caucasus, the code is called Konakhalla. The words differ. The person they describe is much the same.

Bushido

Bushido means "the way of the warrior". It grew out of the conduct expected of the samurai over several centuries, and for most of that time it was not one written text. The version most people know today comes from a short book, Bushido: The Soul of Japan, written in English by Nitobe Inazō and published in 1900.

Nitobe described a set of virtues. Rectitude. Courage. Benevolence. Politeness. Honesty. Honour. Loyalty. And self-control, which runs underneath all of them. Historians still debate how closely the samurai lived by this list. The list itself has outlived the debate. It is taught in dojos on every continent, often without being named.

Read plainly, the bushido code asks for very little that is dramatic. Do what is right when it costs you something. Be courteous to people who cannot do anything for you. Keep your temper. Keep your word.

The wai kru

Before a Muay Thai fight, each fighter performs the wai kru ram muay. It is a slow ritual of bows and movements around the ring, performed to music. It honours the teacher, the kru, and the camp the fighter comes from. Each camp has its own version.

What the ritual says is simple. The fighter did not arrive here alone. Someone taught them. Before trying to win, the fighter says so, in front of everyone.

Two principles in judo

Kanō Jigorō, who founded judo in 1882, reduced his art to two principles. Seiryoku zen'yō: maximum efficiency, minimum effort. Jita kyōei: mutual welfare and benefit. The first is about technique. The second is about the people around you.

Judo cannot be practised alone. Every throw needs a partner willing to be thrown. Kanō built the courtesy into the training itself.

Queensberry

Modern boxing rests on the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, published in 1867. Gloves. Three-minute rounds. A ten-second count. No wrestling. They are rules, not a philosophy. But they changed what was expected of a fighter in the ring. A fallen opponent is left alone. The fight stops when it should stop.

The touch of gloves before the first bell carries the same meaning as the bow. Fighters rarely explain it. They do it anyway.

The tap

Jiu-jitsu has no famous written code. It has the tap. One partner taps, the other lets go, immediately. It is repeated thousands of times in every gym, every night, and it only works if both people are honest. That is a code too, and perhaps the most practised one in the world.

Konakhalla

In the Caucasus, the conduct of the noble man is called Konakhalla. Like early bushido, it was never written as law. It was passed on by example: how an elder spoke to a guest, how a person behaved when they had every reason not to. At its centre is restraint. Strength is assumed. What matters is what a person does with it. We wrote about this at more length in On Restraint.

One person, many names

Put the codes side by side and the overlap is hard to miss. Respect for the teacher. Respect for the opponent. Control of one's temper. Honesty about what happened. Modesty about what one can do.

None of these codes ask anyone to be loud. Most of them ask for the opposite. That is perhaps why people who have trained for a long time are often recognised before they say anything. Martial arts philosophy, in practice, is mostly visible in small things: how someone enters a room, how they lose, how they win.

Outside the gym

The codes were never meant to stay on the mat. Bushido described a way of living, not a way of fighting. The wai kru honours a teacher who is still there after the fight ends. The tap is a habit of honesty.

KANNA KOLLA takes its name from Konakhalla, one code among many, and makes clothing for after training. T-shirts and similar pieces, designed in Italy. Limited, never discounted, shipped worldwide. For those who train, in any discipline.