ian

I'd heard orientals tend to have stronger ligaments in their knees due to it being a traditional seating method for many years (not sure if its genetic).

Many of the people who trained under Ueshiba left Japan as well, and live in the US/Canada or Europe. Also, I have seen some quite large orientals (Saito was pretty heavily built) so I'm not sure that the differences within a country are aren't bigger than between countries (even though mean body form may be different).

I think the main change in aikido is different perspectives on martial arts and greater mixing between people doing different arts. I think it may be difficult to seperate the cultural aspect from that. I get the impression that many Japanese instructors in Japan do a 'tradtional' way, in that they would think there is a certain way to do a technique and thats it (no evolution). Never trained there, but have trained with Japanese instructors who teach in Japan and Japanese instructors who teach elsewhere and I would say there may be a difference in approach.