In Japanese, Buki means weapon and Ryu means school (or style or tradition). The Aberdeen Banyu Hatten Aikido Club regularly practices weapons as a part of the Aikido syllabus in addition to a separate weapons training syllabus. This separate weapons syllabus is called Buki Ryu.
Aikido body movements, footwork and entries derive from armed combat using sword, staff, spear and bayonet. As such a large part of Aikido involves being what is essentially an un-armed swordsman. There are many armed combat arts in Japan which derive from the samurai, the most well known are Kendo, Iaido and Jodo. Kendo being fencing using a Japanese sword, Iaido being the art of drawing the sword and Jodo being the art of using the Japanese short staff.
In Aikido the emphasis in training is to subdue and control your opponent(s) without harming them, thus the traditional use of sword known as kendo/kenjitsu and the short staff known as jodo/jojitsu become Aiki-ken and Aiki-jo respectively. Aiki-ken and Aiki-jo are taught to give students a greater understanding of distancing, timing and body movements. In addition to these traditional Aikido weapons Banyu Hatten Buki Ryu also teaches the use of other weapons with the same aim (i.e. demonstrating the principles of Aiki), for example, Naginata, Nunchuku, Tonfa, Tanto etc.
