What makes Isoyama a "first generation" student? He was born in 1937, a time when men like Tomiki, Shirata, Shioda, and Mochizuki had already spent several years studying with Morihei at the Kobukan. Isoyama achieved dan rank in the mid 1950s. He is junior to many men who are clearly second generation students, like Saito, Yamaguchi, Tada and Arikawa. Some of Isoyama's seniors were "soft," like K. Ozawa; some of his juniors were quite "hard," like Chiba. So its difficult to make sweeping generalizations about how, allegedly, aikido became namby-pamby right after the war and its budo flavor was lost.