Peter Goldsbury

Hello George,

I read your letter as your latest blog and have also read it here, together with all the responses. Of course, I have a few questions.

First, the letter was written as an open letter, and these letters tend to be rhetorical, but have you actually received any responses from your target readers: your own students?

Secondly, you mentioned that Mr Saotome was training leaders and trying to prevent a decline in the art after the pioneers had gone. However, there is an ambivalence here, which is highly relevant to the issues you raise in the letter. Hence a sharp question: As a Hombu deshi, was Saotome Sensei's allegiance primarily to Morihei U or to Kisshomaru U, or did he see them as two sides of the same coin? One can reframe the question in even sharper terms: Did Saotome Sensei have to pay for his training as a deshi, or was he supported by Kisshomaru?

My context here is a remark by a certain Hombu shihan, now deceased, to the effect that postwar deshi did not have any money and this is why Kisshomaru had to take a job in Tokyo, immediately after the war. (When he found out, Morihei U was shocked in a way that a Tokyo (Edo) samurai would be shocked, because his son was in a type of employment utterly unbecoming of a samurai--in this case a budoka, with all that this involved--regardless of any economic circumstances.) However, it was simply not possible to rely on the tiny income from the Iwama dojo and O Sensei's genius as a smallholder—and Morihei U seems not to have realized this. So, the ‘certain Hombu shihan' studied for a while, but had to leave and return later, because they could not afford to keep him.

Even though I have done much research and talked to many people, I am not quite sure whether the following scenario is entirely correct. In the days of the Kobukan, uchi-deshi had to be recommended by two sponsors and also had to pay for their training and upkeep. There was no fixed fee, however, and some members paid very much, to counter-balance those who could not pay so much. There were also some very wealthy and powerful dojo sponsors, who were an essential component of dojo finances—-and this explains why the Kobukan had to become a foundation for tax purposes: in Japan, even nowadays, no one donates money unless there are tangible tax benefits.

So, in the heyday of the Kobukan, O Sensei could really choose those who he would admit to train in his dojo. He was exclusive—-and very famous: and the Kobukan was a budo Harvard.

Now, fast-forward to the late 40s and early 50s. O Sensei was pottering around in his smallholding in Iwama, seemingly unconcerned about promoting aikido, and Japan was in dire economic straits. Kisshomaru was faithfully carrying out the mission he had been given to keep the Tokyo dojo running and it was he—and the same wealthy and powerful dojo sponsors--who decided to resurrect the earlier tax-free foundation. Only now, the aims would be completely different. Aikido would no longer be the preserve of the wealthy upper classes, who had the means to train hard all day, but would be available to everybody, as a healthy and fulfilling activity: exactly the right activity to help Japan to get back on its feet. And, since Japan had been defeated by the allied powers, notably the US and Britain, there was really no problem in sending deshi to these countries to spread this new postwar art of aikido and show them that there was something good about Japan and its culture. I am still researching here, but I believe that this was a huge 'paradigm-shift' for an art like aikido, which eschewed competition (contra K Tomiki), but aimed to offer the chance of acquiring top-quality budo knowledge to everybody who wanted it.

Now I think that Kisshomaru assumed that the Hombu training these deshi had received would simply see them through in the end, but I think you can see the issues here. K Chiba, with whom I had long conversations many years ago, faced the problem of how to train the modern, foreign, counterparts of Hombu deshi, but also earn enough money to survive. He had a kenshusei system. Kenshusei trained much harder than the general dojo population and received recognition; they were earmarked as future instructors. Other postwar Japanese deshi who went to live abroad, like M Kanai, seem not to have followed this system, but also had their own, more subtle, ways of recognizing potential instructors.

So this leads to the third question. I believe it was also K Chiba who used the metaphor of roots, trees, branches, and leaves to characterize an art like aikido. I am sure there are many ways you can apply the metaphor, but a view of the tree above ground presents the trunk, the major boughs, the minor branches, and the leaves. All are necessary to enable the tree to survive as a tree, but all have their respective functions. A pretty ruthless application of the metaphor to a dojo relegates the leaves (ordinary dojo members) to budding every spring and withering away every autumn. The trunk always survives and grows each year. As do the bough and branches, which sprout new leaves. Actually, this is a pretty good metaphor for a Tokugawa-era martial art, which is biologically fixed, but it leaves open some interesting questions, such as how, for example, a leaf from one tree can become a branch of the same tree or of another.

If we consider the tree analogy in relation to your own dojo, do you treat everyone the same, as potential leaders, or do you maintain an unofficial ‘class' system, with differing expectations / obligations placed on the branches and the leaves?

Best wishes,

PAG