Peter
Bill Gleason came to train here. He was the 6th dan I refered to in an earlier post.
He did so after watching Rob's skills make a remarkable jump. after training for four hours we went to dinner. At dinner he stated that this ...this training...was what he was searching for throughout his career. It was the cornerstone power he was looking to find by researching the spiritual aspects of Ueshiba's life for his book.
He further stated that he was going on a teaching tour and -this training- was going to be outlined every where he went.
He came back to train the following week. It is my understanding that he will be incorporating this into his art for the remainder of his career.

Once again, and I cannot stress this enough. Mr Gleason was there and saw Taiji, Bagau, Daito ryu, MMA, Karate...teachers all present and training this way and every one of them stating this training was the heart of their art as well.
More'se the point, every, singel, one of them was certain, completely convinced of two things
a) That they were already doing "it" to one degree or another
after feeling me and my people
b) They were completelty wrong, could in fact NOT do it, and were going to spend the rest of their careers pursuing it.

You may see certain people replies to me, calling me a liar as equal to me stating they don't know the material, and how that "harms" their reputation.
I have a different sort of experience than you Peter.
What's it like for me to stand there and feel, touch, test, then see and hear so many Martial artists from shodan to Menkyo all say the same things, all share the same experience. Each one, all thought they knew too, only to find out they didn't.
Then to come here and find out about Mike and then Ark, who are strangely having such oddly similar experiences as me. It leaves me with certain observable points.
There is a body of knowledge unknown to the vast msajority of martial artists. We missed it.
Most don't even know what it is.
As one recent bagau student stated after coming here and feeling what he consideres essential to his art..
I thought I knew. I didn't know, that I didn't know.

This is my experience with most of the Martial artist I meet. That experience may be different from most of your experiences.

to answer your query to Rob about How this relates to Aikido, aikiweb and the non aikido forum?
That this is being discussed in the Non aikido forum I find quite poignant. It cam to aikido through Ueshiba's initial studies with Takeda, but it is and always was the very heart of Aikido and what all its movement and connection is based on.
Sadly, everyone I have met, and most I have read, are by an large almost totally ignorant of what it is, and most importantly ways to train it.