George, Erick,
Many thanks. There are a lot of issues in your two posts which I have made a conscious decision not to try to cover in these columns. (Otherwise they'll go on indefinitely
).
I am convinced that O Sensei exhibited a particular teaching model that conforms in some respects to what I have seen in Japan outside aikido. The latter tends to be 'kata' based in a broad sense, but I am not at all convinced that O Sensei consciously taught 'principles' in preference to 'kata'. I think it is more complex than this, but have not organized my thoughts sufficiently to express them in a clear way. Even the issues of transmission and inheritance in aikido are perhaps not as clear as they are, say, in Daito-ryu.
Best wishes,