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Old 08-27-2008, 11:46 PM   #19
Ellis Amdur
 
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Location: Seattle
Join Date: May 2003
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Re: Transmission, Inheritance, Emulation 9

Recalling what is on AJ, the 2nd Omoto incident happened years before the "escape from Osaka." I recall somewhere that Takeda did hear about it - after the fact - and sent someone, I can't remember who, to check on Ueshiba's well being. I think this might have been in one of Tokimune's accounts.
As for "running away," what we read over and over again among the pre-war deshi is how scrupulous Ueshiba was in attending to Takeda whenever they were together - one of the deshi stated in an AJ interview something to the effect that Ueshiba showed the exemplar of how to attend to a teacher.
We quite easily (myself among us) have referred to Ueshiba as "running away." Maybe it could also be termed an escape. Yes, we are all greedy for wonderful technique, so it's fun to imagine being a student of Takeda, but imagine having him show up, over and over again. Honestly, aside from his brilliance as a martial artist, he reminds me of nothing more than my mother-in-law!. Last time I was in France, we parked the car, and she slammed her door into the next parked car. The owner was just coming back to his car, and he objected to the damage, and Grandmeme began yelling at the top of her lungs, "Oh, so it's pick on old people today! You parked too close!" When the man objected that he was there first, she suggested his nose belonged deep into another part of his anatomy, and her son-in-law, the martial artist was just the man to put it there. This sort of incident went all day, every day. And all around her were expected to be at her beck-and-call.
And so, too, with Takeda. Ueshiba is a man at the height of manhood, with a family of his own, teaching the military, having adventured at the risk of his life, considerable building up a life of his own. And the old man shows up in Osaka, and the first thing he says upon appearance is that he understood that Ueshiba was teaching - that he wasn't fully competent, etc. Takeda would be quite willing to demean Ueshiba in front of the military men and politicians who were both his livelihood and the circle among whom he was trying to move.
As Stan Pranin points out, their financial arrangement was incredibly vague, between them. What does a fee upon enrollment mean? Deshi? Or anyone whom he taught?
Consider this - if Ueshiba wanted to fully break with Takeda, to whom he felt an enormous debt, he had two choices. He could confront him and tell him (the complexities of this are far beyond and outside bravery - I can speak from personal experience) or do something so egregious that his point was made.
I do not think many readers here have any conception of the all-encompassing and incredibly invasive nature of the old style teacher - student relationship. It's not a koryu thing, either, because very few of the koryu teachers still do things this way. Among my peers, I believe I'm the only one who experienced a modicum of this. In this style, the teacher is sort of like a Mafia boss - in giving a favor (teaching), he is now entitled to demand whatever he thinks he deserves. As a man of strong will, I can honestly say that I felt like I was about to be in a fight, in a fight, or recovering from a fight every day for thirteen years. And I think the intensity of my relationship with my teacher was only a fraction of that of Takeda and Ueshiba.
In essence, look what Ueshiba did. "You want money? Here, have the Asahi Shinbun. They got lots." He clearly did something so out-of-bounds that the relationship as they knew it was broken. (I think it is very significant that he went to Takeda's inn, stood outside, and bowed - and then left. That's not quite the same as running away, is it?). Finally, he went back to Osaka to teach. Takeda surely knew he was there, and Ueshiba knew where he was. That they didn't meet again proves a) the message was given and received b) Ueshiba wasn't afraid to be in the same town after all.
I bet, though, that he wasn't giving out Daito-ryu rank after that period, though.
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