/thread drift...
This is one of the things that drives me *CRAZY* about Aikido. Here you see *one* art that's only 60-80 years old (heck, we can't even agree on that!) and we can't even have a discussion about it using terms that we all understand. Yet in the past when I've tried to elicit a discussion about what it actually is, everyone poo-poos it like some absurd question because anyone who actually studies the art would know it immediately.
Honestly, in the JSA communities, you just don't see this. I've had conversations with people from dozens of different ryu-ha ranging from 20-400 years in age and we all manage to understand what the other is talking about. Sure you get lots of, "Ah, I see what you're doing, we don't do that." or "Aha, we call that X not Y." But here in Aikido, this amazing unifying art, we can't even agree on what the @#$% word Aikido means.
/rant off
