lbb

"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both,
And be one traveler..."

When two roads diverge, you don't know where they're going. They may come together again at some farther point - perhaps just beyond your line of sight. They may go in very different directions. If you could travel both, it might be that one is clearly better than the other...or it may be that one is just as good as the other, but different. But from where you're standing, you don't know. You can't know, unless you can speak to someone who has "traveled both" - not just read about it or theorized about it. All you can do is look down them as far as you can, and then make a choice with the full awareness that this may mean you never travel the other path. You make the choice, and if you're wise, you let go of regrets.

Does this metaphor hold for aikido? Maybe it's time to reconsider it; it's rather been done to death. And, of course, you can always bushwhack - but bushwhacking is no path at all, and definitely it's neither of the two alternatives you see from the fork in the road. Bushwhacking never, ever means walking both paths. It means walking neither.