ChrisHein

 

Some good responses. Thanks.

One of the main reason's I got interested in looking at Koryu. Is because they informed me of a different kind of martial arts context. As Cliff Judge said-"because the environment that informed koryu is gone".

While it's clear that Aikido is not a koryu, Ueshiba created a system that was so influenced by Koryu, that I think it's almost impossible to understand technical Aikido with out spending some real time trying to understand the techniques of many Koryu systems. Jujutsu systems have the most in common with Aikido, but many of the Koryu I've looked at, share much "flavor" with Aikido.

I think when we study something, at first we use comparison to do that. So when many people first start Aikido, that want to compare it to something they may already know more about. Something like Boxing, wrestling, Karate, Kendo or Judo, is probably something most of us were more familiar with when we started training Aikido. I think this comparative influence shades much of what we think Aikido is.

I find systems like Boxing, wrestling, Karate, Kendo and Judo less like Aikido, then many of the Koryu I've looked at (only from outside study though). This is a very interesting thing to me.