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Old 12-19-2012, 04:04 PM   #27
hughrbeyer
Dojo: Shobu Aikido of Boston
Location: Peterborough, NH
Join Date: Aug 2010
Posts: 653
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Re: Aikido Isn't Bullshit

@Mark, huh. If no one else wants to offer you a game, I will.

O-Sensei talked a lot in his later years about Aikido as a "way of harmony". CF interviews on Stan Pranin's DVD series; cf "Hidden in Plain Sight" where Amdur speculates that O-Sensei saw himself as a divinity driven by his student's practice of Aikido--which implies he wanted to promote the art; cf the story that the only complement Kisshomaru ever got from his father was on opening the Tokyo dojo.

As for Kisshomaru creating modern Aikido, I think you can make a good argument that he changed the engine and imposed a lot of standardization, but not that he changed the external form. The '35 Asahi News video shows something that's clearly recognizable to a modern Aikidoka. Daito-ryu demos, on the other hand, are clearly a different art in emphasis and goals. Already in '35 O-Sensei had clearly taken his art in his own direction.

It's also worth pointing out that none of the first-generation students of O-Sensei went back to being Daito-Ryu teachers. Instead, they all created schools which teach variants of the founder's Aikido. How would that be the case, if the Founder's art was 99% Daito-Ryu?

Evolution doesn't prove God doesn't exist, any more than hammers prove carpenters don't exist.
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