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Old 08-17-2012, 07:20 AM   #6
Cliff Judge
Location: Kawasaki, Kanagawa
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 1,276
Japan
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Re: Combat and war affecting the early training training of Aikido

It wasn't just that Osensei fought in real modern combat, it was that he was involved in the early-20th century drive of Japan to build an Empire. Which the Japanese people thought was a great and noble thing despite all of the atrocities they inflicted on the other peoples of Asia. Furthermore, Osensei was seriously involved with a movement that wanted to spiritually transform all of Asia.

But he survived all of that and continued to teach and develop his art for another couple of decades, living through the long and painful hangover of seeing all of that fail and realizing how misguided it all was.

People tend to regard post-war Aikido as being watered down and blissed out but I think you have to consider how much pain and fire was involved in transforming Aikido into that state. It should be more like Post (all) War Aikido.

Probably not what you want to focus your paper on, but it might be interesting to find some Japanese folks in their 80s and 90s who lived through WWII and get a sense of how that changed the national character. I think you would find that the evolution of Aikido through that period reflects that change in attitude.
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