I wasn't at Iwama. In fact, I never went. Because when I trained aikido, it was a guarantee that someone like Inagaki would try to cripple you - NOT in a fair fight, but, say, in the middle of a technique and you gave up the pin, and were waiting to tap out, and he would ignore the tap and rip out your shoulder. I'd already had the attempt made at another Iwama affiliate dojo.
This is not combat - nor a fair fight. It's obscene cowardice. And lest someone is offended that I mentioned Inagaki's name, I truly don't care. Saito sensei was quite fine with this, himself. Because it happened over and over again. Right in front of him. A friend of mine, a white belt who happened to be big, went Iwama all starry-eyed, and was crippled for life - he could no longer functionally bend his right arm. That was in Saito Morihiro's class.
My friend, Terry Dobson, worked out with Inagaki during one of Saito Morihiro's trips to Tokyo. Terry told him he had a separated shoulder, so "let's go easy," and Inagaki waited for nikkyo pin, which Terry gave him and Inagaki ripped the pins out of the bone.
As I mentioned earlier, one of the Iwama big-guys tried, in very studied fashion, to tear out my shoulder on shihonage, saying that he just wanted to show me something, moving very slowly, saying, "no need to take a break fall," and then suddenly tried to bridge my arm and tear it up. I was ready - forewarned by Terry - and took the fall, and then we had some - - - discussion.
More recently, Isat at a table at the aiki-expo listening to Saito Hitohiro bragging to others how they used to beat up guys from Honbu when they came to Iwama to train, but, and this is a direct quote, "It was done out of love, to give them a sense of how things should really be done."
You know, everyone made a big deal about the Ueshiba family taking back Iwama after Saito Morihiro's death. "Oh, it's politics." OR, "The Ueshiba family always resented Osensei's special relationship." Well, payback's a bitch, isn't it. This is the place Tokyo guys went to get injured. At the shrine. Yeah, if you were in-house, like some of my friends, things were fine. But, the place was a cesspool of cheap-shot violence.
Aikido is love? Or it's not. Fine. Nice debate. But Janne, who was a force of nature, did not deliberately set out to hurt people. I worked out with him a fair amount. But he would not accept cheap gratuitous attempts to injure or shame him.
I apologize for the rant. But one thing that has always offended me about aikido is that, often, what is used as "evidence" of aikido's real power is not one-on-one face-to-face, fighting, for whatever that's worth, but at least it's clean - but going backall the way back to Osensei and Yukawa in front of the emperor, it is cheap, nasty sucker punching and locking of people who trust you. Aikido is love? I guess, sometimes, it's also domestic violence - and far too many people call that love too.