Thread: Ueshiba's Aiki
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Old 11-10-2011, 05:18 PM   #62
Ken McGrew
Dojo: Aikido at UAB
Location: Birmingham, Alabama
Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 202
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Re: Ueshiba's Aiki

This post contains a number of testable claims.

You seem to be claiming that O'Sensei did not develop a new martial art but took it from Takeda. Also that modern Aikido isn't the Aikido that O'Sensei trained. Where is the evidence to support these claims? I'm not sure what your claim is exactly. But I can see video of O'Sensei and I can compare it to video of current Shihan's. When I do it looks like the same general approach. Same with his son and grandson.

Are you denying that O'Sensei was religious/spiritual? It looks like that is a claim you are making. If so, what exactly is your evidence? There is so much to refute that claim, if in fact you are making the claim you seem to be making.

You claim that the practice of grounding while being pushed cannot be found in modern Aikido. This is a strange claim to make. It is a regular part of training in most Ki Society schools and I have experienced this training in both ASU and USAF, and at seminars with instructors from other organizations. What exactly is your point anyway?

You seem to be claiming that O'Sensei did not develop Aikido after the war and that there is no difference between what hid did/said before and after the war. Is that your claim? If so, it's mistaken to the extreme.

Quote:
Mark Murray wrote: View Post
It is the nature of aiki to change for each individual. However, if you have aiki, you still have certain qualities to your art as can be seen in Ueshiba's peers: Horikawa and Sagawa. Each of them said that they learned from Takeda, went past Takeda in areas, and were still trying to understand aiki. This is *not* Kisshomaru's "aiki". This is the aiki from Takeda. Do not make the mistake of thinking that Ueshiba's aiki is the same as Modern Aikido's aiki.

There is very little in common with what Modern Aikido does today and what Morihei Ueshiba did. And yes, there is a right and wrong when it comes to Ueshiba's aiki. And no, I don't believe Ueshiba would agree with you. Why do you think he stormed into the dojo and yelled at everyone that they weren't doing his aikido? That he said he looked back and no one was following him? That Saito was learning Daito ryu jujutsu techniques in Iwama while Tokyo under Kisshomaru's direction was doing something entirely different? That Ueshiba got angry when people called him religious? That Ueshiba stated strongly that he was a man of budo? That it was extremely common for Ueshiba to have students push on him, yet we do not find this kind of training in Modern Aikido? That Ueshiba was just standing and talking to someone and told his son, look, I'm training even now -- where is that training in Modern Aikido? That no one looked like Ueshiba when they were all doing fune koge? That some post war students came back after the war, took a look at what was going on in Tokyo and left? And not because of the spiritual nature ... they'd heard it all before from Ueshiba himself before the war.