Ellis Amdur

Mark Murray wrote: Mark, agreed with everything else you write, but you and others who write about a conspiracy, a cover up, are absolutely wrong. Cut it out! Jeez. Just because it wasn't talked about in some aikido dojo in x-town, American, doesn't mean there's a cover-up. There's just no interest that far from the center.
When I went to Japan in 1976, I asked about Daito-ryu (I'd read about it in ALL the forwards of all the the aikido books I'd read - sure, there were some not so nice things written about Takeda, but the gist was there) and I was told where to find it, who taught it, etc. It was common knowledge. That aikido people weren't interested in it is quite understandable, really. Have you ever seen a DR demo in Japan? They don't demo the "aiki" stuff - they mostly do a rather stiff, mannered, often lumpish jujutsu. From what is presented publicly, there has been little to tempt an aikidoka - because the DR people have been covering up their own stuff! They weren't showing anything interesting. If they had, I would have joined in a heartbeat. I didn't know it existed - not from what they were presenting.

BTW - Takeda Sokaku never spoke about or gave credit to the jujutsu-ryu that Daito-ryu came from (Ahem - release in July, due to hold up on design and finding an inexpensive enough printing company). Well, to be fair, he may not have known - OR - he simply felt that he'd made enough changes that he would call it by its own name - which, like Ueshiba, he decided upon.

Sometimes these discussions remind me of a family get-together where an aunt with a strident voice is heard over the various discussions, "Well, Arnold, your son does have a beautiful punin (face), but you know that comes from our side of the family. Just because he has your last name doesn't mean you can take credit for those fantastic genes. With what you've got going on in your family tree, he's lucky he tends to our side."

E. Amdur