Ken McGrew

We are all familiar with the various claims that have been made about Doshu destroying the art against the desires or alternatively knowledge of O Sensei. He has been accused of much more than spin in these forums. This column by Pranin Sensei as well as the interview I posted both demonstrate that it wasn't Doshu alone but with O Sensei that any mistakes were communicated. Remember that in the interview I posted O Sensei and Doshu were both there playing off each others comments and agreeing on what was said.

I don't think the photo should have been altered and I think that it's important to get dates and training histories accurate. So the record has been corrected and that is good.

But the effort to read too much into these things must be opposed. As I stated, it would be impossible to hide historical connection to Jujitsu in the Japanese martial arts community given that anyone who say a basic technique would recognize it. Given this it is not likely that the intention was to hide this history. Whether O Sensei spend a week or 20 years in Jujitsu, the influence is obvious in the techniques. There's no way to hide that and therefore no reason to try to do so. I think it's more likely, therefore, that their motives were something else.

None of this provides much support for the often repeated notion that Aikido is simply Daito Ru rebranded. The only reason that some people bring up things like this non stop is because they hope to support their claims, which include the claim that Aikido is really just Daito Ru, or worse is a watered down version of Daito Ru. This is fundamentally mistaken. Aikido draws far more on the evolving interactions between two swordsmen than it does Daito Ru. O Sensei said so. Moreover, this can be seen as obviously as the techniques of Jujitsu can be seen in Aikido.

Even if these claims were correct, there can be no doubt that O Sensei did not believe this (as the interview I posted, and many other sources that have been discussed in the past, demonstrate). If people think that O Sensei was just teaching a watered down version of Daito Ru as a sort of con, or if they think O Sensei had deluded himself into falsely believing he had developed something new, then why do they post on this Aikido related forum rather than a Daito Ru forum? Why don't they leave Aikido to the rest of us to waist our time on and go happily train in Daito Ru? Those of us who train in Aikido owe a certain respect and loyalty to the founder. Or move on.

I don't understand the question that Chris ended his post with. O Sensei was very clear on Aikido not being reducible to techniques. When he said there were 10,000 techniques in Aikido what he was referring to were variations pieced together in unique ways in spontaneous situations. Really, there are millions of variations, even infinite variations, of appropriate responses in a given and changing dynamic situation. The ability to spontaneously create and respond and to modify techniques and movements in this manner is the physical manifestation of Take Muso Aiki.