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Old 08-27-2009, 01:25 PM   #1
Ellis Amdur
 
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Location: Seattle
Join Date: May 2003
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"Hidden in Plain Sight" Book Discussion

Well, the book is out - and I've been working a lot more than I anticipated - eight-ten hour days to get all the orders completed. And it's possible I made a mistake here and there. Let me know!
Anyway, I am happy to discuss aspects of the book - I don't know if this will end up splitting in lots of threads or not.
But let's see (Jun - let me know).
I got a PM inquiring about Kano's reaction to Ueshiba - and the writer wondered if, per Tokimune, Kano and Takeda were "good friends," why the attraction to Ueshiba, as if he was doing something new to Kano. Was it possibly just personality issues.
I definitely do not think so. Tokimune was a child in the 1920's, and a mostly abandoned teenager in the 1930's. This is corroborated by the wife of Horikawa Kodo. Furthermore, Tokimune was not, in many ways, a good historian. Many of his accounts are not corroborated by other sources. Finally, Kano was a "spacious" man - he was friends with and associated with all sorts - and was always on the lookout to incorporate anything good into the Kodokan. He had Funakoshi demo, he had a koryu research section. Takeda was quite happy to demo/teach in large groups - so please don't imagine that some modesty or sense of secrecy would have kept him from teaching Kodokan people. Most of his DR was of the HIPS variety, anyway. Kano kept a diary - he had many associates. If Takeda was, in fact, a friend, it would be well-known. And those like Mochizuki and Tomiki, who trained in judo and in aikijutsu, and who actually knew Takeda, would have mentioned that. Sugino (TSKSR and judo and aikido) mentions how, in the end of the 1930's, he first saw Takeda, and was astonished by him.
Anyway, I think Tokimune's account is the equivalent of some Bujinkan claims that Takamatsu and Kano were friends, and that the former taught Kano essential info that made judo what it is today.
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Ellis Amdur

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