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Old 12-20-2009, 09:38 AM   #22
Mike Sigman
Location: Durango, CO
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 4,123
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Re: Transmission, Inheritance, Emulation 16

Quoting Peter's list of questions:
Quote:
1. What, exactly, do these skills consist of?
2. Did Takeda Sokaku possess these skills?
3. If so, how did Takeda Sokaku acquire these skills?
4. Did Takeda Sokaku teach these skills to all his disciples?
5. In particular, did Takeda Sokaku pass on these skills to Ueshiba Morihei?
6. If not, how did Ueshiba Morihei acquire these skills?
7. Did Ueshiba Morihei teach these skills, as part of his training methodology?
8. Did Ueshiba Morihei pass on these skills to all his disciples?
9. Did Ueshiba Morihei pass on these skills to those who claim succession from him: the heads of the schools practicing the various ‘flavors' of aikido, such as Yoseikan or Yoshinkan?
10. Does the acquisition of these skills form part of the teaching/training methodology of postwar aikido, especially the Aikikai?
Bearing in mind that I think the records show that general knowledge/dissemination of these skills and their adjuncts was so wide that the Takeda/Ueshiba story is only a small fragment of the whole, Peter's list reminds me of something that has bothered me for some time and I'd like to hear Peter and/or Ellis's thoughts about it.

At about the time Koichi Tohei was bidding a fond farewell to the home dojo, he had a number of teaching meetings with members of the dojo, attempting to pass on what he thought was critical information, as I understand it. Presumably a lot of this information had to do with internal-strength skills and the impetus had to be Tohei's belief that many of the people training at the home dojo were not getting enough information. This issue has a lot to do with the last four questions in Peter's list.

One of the things that struck me when I first learned about Tohei's "lessons" near the end was how much Tohei's teachings should have affected the level of information that we see in so many western Aikido teachers today. What happened?

Was Tohei's attempt at explication unsuccessful? Or did most of the people who politely attended Tohei's meeting feel that already knew this stuff about "ki" skills? Was there a loyalty question such that many politely attended, but took nothing home because their true teacher was Ueshiba and it would have been politically inexpedient to truly learn anything from Tohei at this juncture? Did the standard ego problems hinder Tohei's teaching attempts? And so on.

However, the fact that Tohei held such meetings indicates that he felt there was something major missing from the teaching of Ueshiba at that time, couldn't we say? So Tohei's actions at that time do a bit toward answering some of the questions that Peter posed, IMO.

FWIW

Mike Sigman
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