Budokwai

The Budokwai is the oldest Japanese martial arts club in Europe. It was founded in January 1918 by Gunji Koizumi, a Japanese immigrant who opened the first dojo in a set of converted shops near Buckingham Palace. Koizumi chose the name to mean the Society of the Martial Way, and he designed its logo—a stylized character on a blue cherry blossom—to symbolize the idea that the true purpose of martial training is to stop fighting rather than to start it.