Gerardo Torres

I agree that, as Dan mentioned above, one can spot connection or lack thereof. However it's not my place to judge Endo as I've never trained with the man. That said, it's hard to tell as the uke in the video is already collapsing before anything is done to him.

It's hard for me to fully visualize the exercise you describe. What I can gather is that you try to maintain a relation between shoulder and hips as you move where shoulders are on top of hips, for example as you turn in response to a frontal push; in the process, you study power transfer to the hands. Yes, there are instances in static drills and solo training where I have studied those connections (Chris Li posted a link about harmonies). For example the Aunkai has drills where one is in Mabu and those connections are trained. Kokyu-dosa could be another instance where one studies that.

When I move in aikido, or weapons, I want to move energy - spiral - so the connections are maintained but the hip-shoulder relationship changes; for example, I could have both hips square but by turning at the waist/center the shoulder can be at certain angles. There are also strategic and technical reasons, especially with weapons, why I would not want to keep shoulders over hips as I move. This is similar to the knee on top of foot relation: if we take it literally, we would lock ourselves in a limited range of positions. Again, I understand you were talking about an exercise, but I personally tend to train in a way that informs all my Budo - a unified theory so to speak, so my body is doing the same thing (spiral) whether I'm doing empty handed aikido, weapons, attacking, defending, etc.

I didn't really mean to use the should independently. Even if the shoulder is at an angle (not on top) wrt hips everything remains connected in order to move energy in the body.