Another thank-you to Carsten for the background information on Noro Sensei. I had seen and been baffled by what he's doing before this--it's good to know the origin and motivation.
@Mary, why ask Dan how he teaches shihonage? He doesn't teach aikido... he just teaches aikido teachers.
And when I hear someone who's done aikido for 40 years, 10 in Japan and the other 30 running his own dojo, say how much he learns from a day with Dan, I assume Dan does adequately well with that.
Since I
do practice aikido and IP skills, if I can take a stab at your question: When I practice shihonage the primary use of IP skills is at the beginning and the end. On ryote-tori omote, for example, my goal is that uke's balance is taken on first contact, so that by the time uke has a good grip I own their center. In the past I might have done this by leading them slightly so they overcommit and overbalance forward slightly; or I might have blended and moved off line omote so they again overcommitted and overbalanced; or I might have made myself soild and let them run into my grounded center, and taken advantage of their momentary reaction to move into the tenkan.
With the IP skills, my goal is more that they never reach or affect my center at all; instead their power coming into me is dissipated and throws them off balance. To me, it feels like I never have to work very hard because they never get a good handle on me. (On a good day.) Unlike blending or leading tho, I never lose my connection with their center, so I can control them--in particular when I move in for the tenkan, not only can they not stop me, they want to move out of my way.
One man's opinion, yada yada. Obviously I'm trying to learn what me teacher's trying to teach, but I make no claims that either he or Dan would approve the above message. Just my attempt to put words on the current state of my practice.