Gernot Hassenpflug

Mike, that's obviously a teaching paradigm for creating elites rather than masses of useful though not as expert fighters. It's also rather hit-and-miss and arts don't really develop: unless one postulates that development is practical only, i.e. winning the next battle. At least that's my view. Nowadays it's hard to both a) figure out if a teacher has something, and b) to be surrounded by hard-working students, say in an aikido dojo. Without some direction people will wander all over the place. I would say the old teaching only works with direct transmission, not with large organizations with an extended hierarchy spanning continents. To keep the old methods means effectively assuming that in such large organizations, a small elite is continuing the tradition. Which is good. But if you have to ask you don't deserve to know and all that... There's also the issue of personal connections over merit.