Peter Goldsbury

Hello Clark, Lynn,

Thank you for the encouraging words.

Actually, I have been pondering these issues over the past decade or so, ever since becoming more deeply involved with the IAF.

Having a position like Chairman of the IAF gives one a certain 'extra-cultural' vantage point, from which one can see more clearly the 'omote' and 'ura' sides of aikido, as they manifest themselves around the world. There are so many issues here, ranging from, e.g., what I myself can state on a public Internet forum, to the deeper ones, involving value judgments about how later generations have received--and managed--the legacy they thought they had received from Morihei Ueshiba.

These are still early days in aikido, only three generations since O Sensei's passing, so we, too, are involved in creating a living tradition, just as much as the early pioneers like Kisshomaru Doshu, and Japanese shihans like Yoshimitsu Yamada or Mitsugi Saotome.

In these columns I am generally questioning received wisdom about aikido in the most delicate way possible for me at this moment. Actually, Stanley Pranin was the pioneer in this way of questioning and I think we all owe him an enormous debt, for having the courage to create an independent source, fully cognizant of the accepted standards of scholarship, for the acquisition of knowledge about aikido and its history.

I think I will need about ten columns in all, in order to cover all that I want to say. I think the original issues were raised by Morihei Ueshiba's separation from Sokaku Takeda and also from Kisshomaru Ueshiba's 'separation' from his father, though the separation was not accomplished in the same way.

Best wishes,

PAG