Mike Sigman

I'm still waiting for someone to respond to Ellis' points in post #13. Takeda got his stuff somewhere, but I don't see any great worry about that aspect.

Another thing I'd point out is that the topic of these skills in the West is pretty new and people are sometimes a little quick in thinking that their newly-found understandings represent all there is to know. The assumption seems to be that Takeda was the only available source of these kinds of skills, yet all the koryu 'secret' practice methods I see, Kendo, Iaido (caveat: I mean *when* these arts are done at a high level), and so on all had different aspects of these skills. Look at Kuroda's present-day stuff.. that didn't come via Takeda.

There's more than just the basic jin/kokyu skills. There are areas of these trainings that we have no indication whether or what Takeda knew, although we have written indications that some of the Misogi training from different groups *did* provide these skills. So the totality of Ueshiba's skills is still a question that is and probably always will be unknown to some degree.

Frankly, when I came into Aikido in the 70's, I was aware that Ueshiba got some of his stuff from Daito Ryu. Big deal.... everyone gets his stuff somewhere, as did Takeda. I still fail to see why there is this constant importance to some people that Takeda be mentioned whenever Ueshiba's name is mentioned. What's the importance?

FWIW

Mike Sigman