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Re: Atemi
Ignatius,
Both John Stevens and Kisshomaru Ueshiba wrote more or less 'popular' biography, not scholarly history. Neither substantiate their accounts, but I understand that John Stevens especially talked to many disciples of the Founder, so received much information, albeit secondhand. However, there are a number of stories in John's biography that Kisshomaru Ueshiba thought were exaggerated. With respect to Mongolia, I think that Kisshomaru had an advantage here, since the source of his information was right there, in the house.
The point of my posts was simply to point to problems in Rick Clark's over-reliance on secondary sources. It was not to cast doubt on Morihei Ueshiba's supposed knowledge of atemi to 'vital points'. I do not know whether Mr Clark can read Japanese, but if he can, I think he would see the general fragility of much of what passes for 'fact' concerning O Sensei in English.
I have lived here for many years and have had the (sometimes dubious) pleasure of taking ukemi for disciples of the Founder who occasionally used 'vital points'. One shihan in particular invariably did 1-kyou via pressure points on the elbow, rather than the normal method.
This example points to a problem of terms. From Kisshomaru's account of O Sensei's exploits in Mongolia, I understand that O Sensei's encounters with Mongolian goons were of the 'Here, grab my wrist' type, followed by a very severely applied 4-kyou. We know from other sources that Morihei Ueshiba's grip was very strong. So it is reasonable to assume that his 4-kyou would have been highly effective.
However, is 4-kyou really an atemi, in the sense implied by this thread? I doubt it.
PAG
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