Quote:
Originally posted by Edward
Well, I guess you're right. However, Osensei himself passed through many periods in his way to developing aikido. I have the impression, and I might be wrong, that he became more religious and philosophical as he grew older. I myself, since I'm still 33 years old, would rather follow Osensei's example and do hard aikido first, changing my style progressively as I get older and physically weaker. Why do we have to copy Osensei's style when he was almost dying while we are still young and energetic? A good example of that is Gozo Shioda sensei. He said there is a natural evolution from hard to soft as we progress in aikido and as we get older. So there is no use to teach a young beginner to be soft but let him use his natural excess of energy, or something in this meaning... 
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My impression is that he was already heavily into the religious aspects when Shioda was training with him. He got his first "enlightenment" around 1925, and he was close to Deguchi from well before that (from around 1919 - Shioda didn't begin training until 1932). Shioda just wasn't very interested in that aspect - in Aikido Jinsei he says that M. Ueshiba talked about those concepts all the time, but he mostly didn't listen very closely.
In any case, I don't see any real reason why you can't be religious and philosophical and still do hard training. Training at Iwama after the war (when M. Ueshiba was at his most "philosophical") was pretty vigorous, from what I understand.
Best,
Chris