Quote:
Joshua Landin wrote:
The unfortunate truth is that there is no Aiki in mainstream, post-war modern Aikido. As Stan Pranin explains very well here, the Aikido that O-sensei practiced and the Aikido that has been passed down to us are not the same thing.
Why has this happened? Because those who inherited the Hombu dojo after O-sensei, could not (with few exceptions) grasp what O-sensei was trying to teach them, nor could they duplicate his skills. So they changed the art, watered it down to suit them and their own limitations. |
I've got issues with this line of thought.
What is it that you think Ueshiba was doing before his son and senior students decided to throw it all out the window and create Aikido?
You think he was a brilliant teacher with a well-articulated system he was trying to pass on, but his son and senior students ignored him, or did not do things he asked of them, and instead slapped together a useless dancey art form with no special powers and passed that off as something it wasn't?
If Ueshiba had a thing he wanted to teach, he would have taught it. And he would have made sure it was learned. Either he had no idea how to teach, or he didn't really have anything coherent to teach.
Or - maybe - Aikido is actually the art he meant to transmit.