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Cliff Judge wrote:
But the thing is, you might not see him say specifically "the hakama and dogi, as well as clapping and bowing, are essential to Aikido." Because for this to be remarkable at all would require that he thought of them as distinct things at all, and not part of a larger gestalt of cultural transmission.
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My understanding of history is that, by the time Ueshiba had established his own dojo in the 1940s, Kano and Funakoshi had already popularized budo that were practiced without hakamas. Furthermore, many of Ueshiba's students came to aikido after first training these budo. It doesn't make sense to me to believe, in that context, that it went without saying that budo and the hakama were inseparable.
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In general I think the thing would be to look for cases where he tells students they need to attend to details, keep themselves clean, not be lazy, not be sloppy, stuff like that.
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Those are all very vague things. I think it would be a stretch to consider them evidence of a specific assertion about a specific garment or practice.