There’s been a few comments recently about the relationship of Karate and Tai Chi to Buddhism and Taoism.

You obviously don’t have to be any religion to study either. They are both practised by millions world wide from all cultures and religions, but they do arise from Buddhist and Taoist cultures.

The names of the arts and their styles reflect this, any Japanese art ending in ‘do’ (karatedo, judo, aikido, iaido etc) the ‘do’ is the ‘Tao’ and the names often relate to gentleness, softness, emptiness, peace and harmony from the religion in those cultures. The name ‘Tai Chi’ relates to the Taoist Tai Chi (yin/yang) symbol, so although the arts are not religious, their names, principles and ideas do draw heavily from the religion and cultures they emanate from.

As a practitioner you can of course ignore their roots and practise an evolved form, but you can’t deny them.