PeterR

I think you pretty much nailed it. Practice could be pretty severe or not depending on who trained and when. In fact you can find the same finger pointing then as you do now.

One thing though is that several of the early students came from a Judo background (or sumo) and had tested themselves under pretty extreme circumstances. They were learning techniques for their own sake and knew what they could do.

When Tomiki called Aikido training an eyeless tiger he was referring to students that knew only Aikido. Other older students of Ueshiba addressed the problem through other means than competition such as particularly rigorous training. Either way there was an attempt by some to test character rather than just the techniques.