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I never met Dobson Sensei. Several of my instructors and Sempi were very familiar with his Aikido and thought. I have been privy to unpublished interviews with Dobson Sensei that you have not seen. Nothing I have said contradicts what Dobson Sensei came to believe about Aikido.
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I'm just about finished here, but I had to laugh at this one. "privy to unpublished interviews" Quelle Surprise! Zut Alors!!!!!
I was Terry's uchi-deshi. I lived in his dojo. For one and one-half years, I met him every day, we at shrimp and soda-bread sandwiches at the Binibon Cafe in the Lower East Side, and smoked dope every day before practice. We chased the same women: he had craft and experience and I had long hair and good looks.
I listened to every meandering thought that wiffled through his often drug-addled and yet, always brilliant brain. I am more qualified to speak about Terry
in this light than any person alive. (P.S. - if some of the readers of this statement have another candidate, write to me PM and I'll prove my point). He was somewhat more that my older brother.
Terry loved Ueshiba, who literally saved his life. Yet he trained with Haga, Otake, Wang Shu Chin and was Hatsumi's first non-Japanese student. You could see a little Katori in his shomen uchi, some xingyi in his belly and some crazy-ass nonsense from early Bujinkan every now and then.
I caught him in my arms when he collapsed with a mini-stroke some months before his death. And we spent three days talking about power and aikido and what it meant to him.
He would have absolutely loved this creative ferment, and, were he able, would have taken part.
Let me put it as clearly as I can. Everything you have written - and the manner you write - directly contradicts what Terry believed about aikido. Without any ambiguity whatsoever - everything.
Ellis Amdur