Re: Has anyone surpassed O'Sensei?
First off, that vid is mislabeled. It's a piece of the 1935 Asahi News demo... google "1935 Asahi News aikido" and you'll find the full thing.
The way O-Sensei is holding his arms--and his whole body--is very interesting and deep. Also interesting how much less of that he manifests externally as he matures.
It is a demo, so of course his ukes aren't trying to screw up his techniques. But read some of his students' recollections of taking ukemi from him during that period if you doubt whether it really worked. Also see if you can dig out some of Dan Harden's old posts about how O-Sensei moves to see what you might be looking for. You've been around Aikiweb a while, you may remember some of them.
It's generally a problem that since Aikido doesn't require muscular effort, the best Aikido often looks fake. I don't know how to solve that one.
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