View Single Post
Old 09-25-2013, 09:00 AM   #29
Michael Hackett
Dojo: Kenshinkan Dojo (Aikido of North County) Vista, CA
Location: Oceanside, California
Join Date: Oct 2000
Posts: 1,253
Offline
Re: Osensei's Feet of Clay

Perhaps he was just caught up in the thinking of the times just as many of the citizens were. With his associations with people in leadership positions, my thinking was that while he wasn't a prime mover, he helped forge the thinking. I suppose my real underlying question was did he change his thinking, or did he behave like a modern American politician and find a way of presenting himself in a better light? It doesn't matter much seventy years later I guess. What he transmitted in the post-war years is what we have to one extent or another. It doesn't appear that he was anything but a rather small cog in the Japanese war machine of the time. At least we have aikido today, regardless of what his real thinking was. And maybe he did change and maybe he did regret his earlier contributions and learned from them.

Michael
"Leave the gun. Bring the cannoli."
  Reply With Quote