Quote:
Drew Ames wrote:
Hi Fred! I only called out Peter and Ellis because they'd recently responded to this thread. It's great to hear from you.
So, the The Life-Giving Sword connection to aikido is somewhat tenuous. My follow-up question: how commonly read was The Life-Giving Sword in Japanese martial arts circles in the 20th century?
Regards,
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Good question, Drew. Peter has a much better sense of that than I, particularly with regard to what specific texts Ueshiba might have read.
In this case, I would note a few other data points -- a) the Shinkage-ryu scroll that Ueshiba received from Takeda in Ayabe in 1922, b) Takeda's widely documented illiteracy c) Ueshiba's history of appropriating and re-spinning traditional words and catchphrases which he found had surface resonance with his own Oomoto-derived notions of renewing the universe into a closer -- if historcially suspect -- alignment with those notions.
Barring compelling evidence of his familiarity with the text, I would guess he had heard the phrase, likely from Takeda, and then repeated in some of his own three am discourses to freezing uchi-deshi, some of whom subsequently added their own spin when marketing the art in the cultural milieu of the Seventies and Eighties.
Best,
FL