Morihei's changing picture.

Ken McGrew wrote: Why won't the shins who come to kneel at your feet, I mean train with you, post on this forum in defense of the things that you are saying about the origins and nature of Aikido?

Is there a need to be rude about this? No one kneels at my feet. And I don't let anyone call me sensei either-though many want to. Doesn't leave much ammo for you to throw at me does it?

Again, I am asking you to leave this thread intact and focused on the discussion. Move your running commentary elswhere?
My thread, move your off topic stuff elsewhere.
Dan

My rudeness is only in response to yours given that Jun apparently won't discipline you for making them. When you stop making insulting and rude statements then I will go back to being as polite as I had been for some time now. I won't let you bully me.

Meanwhile I removed that quote already. It went too far. It was not meant as a comment on those teachers but rather on your ego and the way you interpret these teachers training with you.

In the meantime, I answered your question, but you have not responded to my specific questions.

I am not off topic. You and others have posted about what you take to be the significance of what you take to be a deliberately altered photo. I am challenging the significance that you assign to that photo. I am questioning the motives behind your thread. Moreover, once you made a number of insulting statements towards me I had a right to respond. You brought them on topic even if I was slightly off topic in part of my first response.

Now please respond to the questions. In particular, do you retract the claim that my understanding of the origins of Aikido being related to the movement of weapons is not what Saotome teaches?

Caveat:

I am absolutely not going to get in the middle of these discussions.... totally screwed things up the last time I did.

So, two things, I have trained under Saotome Sensei for over 35 years. No one is empowered to represent my views about his Aikido except me. Most of what I think is important, I have already written down somewhere. So, if anyone is interested in finding out what I think, you have only to search on aikiweb or aikidojournal.

Two, I have been training periodically with Dan Harden. Dan is on our schedule to visit our dojo three times in 2012. I don't do training that I don't think will make my Aikido better. It is 100% my focus. Any other martial style I pursue or any teachers who are not Aikido teachers with whom I train, it is to make my Aikido better. So, I think that the fact that I my students and I have chosen to work with Dan repeatedly in the past and will continue doing so in the future as long as Dan is willing to keep being so generous about sharing his knowledge, pretty much speaks for itself.

Ken McGrew wrote: This is what Saito Sensei said about the origins of Aikido: "... That is why weapons are an especially important part of aikido."

Ueshiba weapons, Saito weapons or Saotome weapons?

Those of us who actually train in Aikido must get our understanding of Aikido from our teachers, not from non-Aikido practicing individuals.

Well, as I'm not actually training in Aikido, my understanding comes from various sources... I'm not into buying the "because sensei said so it must be true". There are historians, philosophers, sociologists and martial artists inside and outside the Aikido world worth paying attention to.

You know, looking at the forest (Aikido at large) instead of focusing in one tree (Saotome's particular understanding of Aikido).

Dear Ken,

1. I am not involved for I am an outsider who never practiced with Dan Harden, I don't belong to ASU and didn't ever practice with someone writing on this forum. So I have nothing to win or to loose here.

Then: I' am connected relatively close to the aikikai via my teacher (who just became rokudan as I saw on the kagami biraki list ... ) and his teacher, who is a hachidan shihan. My teacher also holds a teaching rank an is shibu cho in Germany of a koryu.

Having said this.

It is unpleasant for me to read your threads. My feeling is angry, irate, also kind of helpless when reading your post.
I simply don't get where they are directed towards the factual issues being discussed. And therefore I don't get in which way they bring forth the discussions and the - mostly - to me very interesting problems.
I hope to learn something through these discussions. But sometimes I can't because you capture them.

2. I get the impression that you seem to understand certain statements as attack. You seem to feel Ueshiba Morihei being attacked, the second doshu, Saotome Mitsugi sensei. Also aikido in itself or the aikikai as the ryu that preserves aikido and to which you, I and others belong.

It is my experience that those people don't need someone who defends them or defends the aikikai or ... They are used to speak for themselves. All of them (even if I don't know Saotome sensei, I'm sure of that) ar used to and know to deal with conflicts like this. They don't need "us sandan" helping them and solving their "problems".
But besides that I don't think that someone - be it Dan Harden or someone else - who is posting something on an internet forum is such a "problem". I once reported such a "problem" to the other shihan of our German federation and he answered: "Can't be helped. Did your ikkyo improve since we met? ..."
We can lean back, relax. My experience: If we feel our sensei offended, one sentence is enough. If the discussion partner carries on, it can't be helped. If he is interested in the discussion, he will excuse and try to not do it again.

My impression of what is done here: To look behind the scenes, to dig deeper, to learn more about the non-official version of whatever is no offense and is no attack. On the contrary: It is very helpfull.

3. I also get the impression, that what is being said about "internal aikido" questions your practice of aikido very deeply. To me ist seems that you are fending off understandings of aikido which are not in tune with what you learnend and did and know.

It is my experience that we have to trust in a teacher or someone who is presenting something new to us. Not only in aikido. If I trust him, I can learn and try out even if I don't improve at once on the spot. i can just relax and let him teach me and chew it and digest it and wait and see and maybe ...
If I don't trust him there is no sense and no need to talk about his teaching. May others follow him and find their way with him. Not my road ... I will continue to do my own stuff.

And whether I trust a teacher or not doesn't have to depend on his grading.

4. So I ask you:
Please let the discussions in this forum flow around their topics.
If you feel offended send a mail to Jun. Or inform the person or organisation you think is in trouble.
If you think someone is teaching something you don't want to learn, just don't learn it. But let others do what they do.
If you have a problem with Dan Harden decide whether you are able to ignore this. Or whether you have to solve this with him. But with him, not in an internet forum, drawing all users into this.

Please let the discussions in this forum flow around their topics and find another way to represent your personal interests.

since i am a nobody in ASU, so i can throw in my view. folks can insult my teachers and organization or aikido or whatever to their heart content. it won't bother me one iota. could even insult me directly too and you get the same result - indifferent and could careless.

what was that quote about freedom of speech "i might not agree with what you said, but will defend to death your right to say it" or something along that line. one thing folks doesn't realize that there is a very effective weapon against freedom of speech, it called the right to ignore. so my advise, exercise your freedom and your right.

now as for the whole picture changing thing, when i first saw the headline, i thought it was someone who sneaked into the changing room and took O Sensei picture and posted it on youtube or something. i thought it's kinda gross, seeing a naked old man picture. then after reading some of the stuffs about various removal/obscuring of historical stuffs, i thought it was interesting info, but i just shrugged. it didn't help my aikido one bit. interesting to know, but that's about it.

Carsten Möllering wrote: I once reported such a "problem" to the other shihan of our German federation and he answered: "Can't be helped. Did your ikkyo improve since we met?"

Ken McGrew wrote: Dan Harden doesn't know what he is talking about. He doesn't hold Dan rank in any martial art.

I don't know, but in my experience Dan is about the most Dan Dan I have ever met. I mean, he is really Dan. I would say he ranks about 10 on the Dan scale. None are more Dan.

Phi Truong wrote: ...now as for the whole picture changing thing, when i first saw the headline, i thought it was someone who sneaked into the changing room and took O Sensei picture and posted it on youtube or something. i thought it's kinda gross, seeing a naked old man picture...

LOL!!!

Stan has revised the blog and included all four photos now.

1922
In the first photo the top of the scroll (reading Daito ryu Aikijujutsu) is significantly higher than the horizontal line between top of the shoji and the wood line of the wall behind it.

1959
In the second altered photo the scroll vanishes and more of the wall appears revealing the end of the shoji panel to the right. The place where the scroll was is obviously whited out and a new uniform shading of wood appears

1975
In the third altered photo it appears they took out the portion of the scroll above that horizontal line between the wood and the shoji and also whited out the remaining bottom of the kanji for ryu. It is obvious that the scroll has no "top" ending point at all. Now only Aikijujustu remains

1986
Here is yet another altered version of the photo that was published in a book titled "Aikido Shintei," by Kisshomaru Ueshiba in 1986. In this image, yet a different alteration appears with the "ryu" character of "Daito-ryu" being cut in half, with the characters for "Aikijujutsu" being faintly visible below. The quality is very poor, and the photo quite small.

Four different photos, spanning eighty four years. Sending at least one clear message. We want to erase his connection to Daito ryu.

Then we have the Black Dragon scroll and that calligraphy disappearing as well. Was the message as Fred suggests -to erase ties with that affiliation as well?

Since this is so obvious, and the implication clear, is it unprecedented?
Comparatively speaking many budo organization openly discuss their founders origins, leaving their founders training history intact while typically recounting epiphanies and awakenings, solo aesthetic research and so forth, for their founders "uniqueness." Some are indeed quite colorful. The histories help explain some things that cannot be hidden-which remain obvious to the more educated budoka; such as essence of movement, similar waza, use of weapons , solo aesthetic research etc., while also illuminating the departure from the past and how and why their founders changed course. Some arts- including some Koryu- have seen some dramatic changes, the origins of which largely remain held, indoors. It is even going on today with Menkyo taking in influences from outside to alter their arts.

It is in this light, that we can review these attempts to reduce or alter Ueshiba's training history by the aikikai. By greatly reducing the influence of such strong ties and personalities that now ran contrary to their goals-it helped further the idea of a completely unique creation that the family could then own, similar to a Koryu model. Given the colorful history of Takeda and Deguchi one could argue that we can hardly blame them. It is quite difficult to be unique standing next to those two. You could also make a strong argument that it was precisely because of his past that he turned a corner into something new, thus the full story would have actually given people a greater appreciation and fuller understanding of both his experiences and his vision to see past it.

In the end he still ended up unique, but for different- and to many of us- even more compelling reasons. Budo is filled with men with skills. He had power most had never seen and made a very unique path in which to use it. In his life story, it was the obvious change in direction that I found most interesting.
Dan

I think perhaps you mean ascetic, rather than aesthetic.
ascetic is under a waterfall
aesthetic is under a hair-dryer

Patrick Hutchinson wrote: I think perhaps you mean ascetic, rather than aesthetic. ascetic is under a waterfall aesthetic is under a hair-dryer

Note to self...use spell check before pressing submit.!

Dan Harden wrote: Note to self...use spell check before pressing submit.!

I feel your pane, but spell check won't help; it will only tell you if what you wrote is a word or not.

Was there a time when it wasn't common knowledge that O'Sensei studied Daito Ryu? I ask because when I started in 2001 (yup, young'n) it was EVERYWHERE I looked that Daito Ryu was in Aikido's past. Is this just because I came into things post-internet, as it were?

Nathan Mishler wrote: Was there a time when it wasn't common knowledge that O'Sensei studied Daito Ryu? I ask because when I started in 2001 (yup, young'n) it was EVERYWHERE I looked that Daito Ryu was in Aikido's past. Is this just because I came into things post-internet, as it were?

Thanks be to Stan. Prior to him it was known, but greatly de-emphasized - included as one of the many things that Morihei Ueshiba trained in before making a completely original creation.

Best,

Chris

Nathan Mishler wrote: Was there a time when it wasn't common knowledge that O'Sensei studied Daito Ryu? I ask because when I started in 2001 (yup, young'n) it was EVERYWHERE I looked that Daito Ryu was in Aikido's past. Is this just because I came into things post-internet, as it were?

Yup
Stan Started writing about it in the 80's.
More interesting was that no one really knew or understood that there really wasn't much by way of prewar aikido or even what Daito ryu was. Stan more or less discovered for the Western world that Ueshiba almost solely trained in DR for over twenty years and when he opened up shop he chose to teach DR.
This was simply not known in the west.
Most of those now famous Prewar deshi showed Stan their DR scrolls and he took photos. Recent expanded interviews are also showing that Takeda actually was showing up at the dojo every 3-6 months. With that I am also finding it peculiar that we hardly EVER read first hand accounts of the interactions between Ueshiba and Takeda ..by students...who most assuredly who were there. It's as if it never happened.

There is a history -best left out of this thread- of repeated obfuscations and down playing. I will see if I can find where Kisshomaru apologized for that at one point.
Anyway, as a capstone for me, I had a visiting Japanese Shihan tell me and a friend in 1992 that there was no more Daito ryu! This as both of us were training in Aikido and Daito ryu.

To be fair DR owes a debt to Aikido in that it's popularity and access to it grew from Aikido. Not the least of which is that an incredible number of students came to it from aikido. Also that Ueshiba continued to grow and made significant changes to his art. Some of which I think are pretty significant and original. Some, young and old find the history fascinating, others could care less as they don't think it helps advance their training.
Dan

Patrick Hutchinson wrote: I think perhaps you mean ascetic, rather than aesthetic. ascetic is under a waterfall aesthetic is under a hair-dryer

LOVELY choice for differentiating!

Christopher Li wrote: Thanks be to Stan. Prior to him it was known, but greatly de-emphasized - included as one of the many things that Morihei Ueshiba trained in before making a completely original creation. Best, Chris

I am not sure about the 1st edition of Dynamic Aikido by Gozo Shioda which was published in 1968 but in the paperback edition of 1977, he mentioned Daito-ryu in the history of aikido.

Cheers

David Y

David Yap wrote: I am not sure about the 1st edition of Dynamic Aikido by Gozo Shioda which was published in 1968 but in the paperback edition of 1977, he mentioned Daito-ryu in the history of aikido. Cheers David Y

What the Yoshinkan said (no offense) got mostly eclipsed by whatever the Aikikai put out. Of couse, the Aikikai mentioned Daito-ryu as well - the difference was in the spin, I imagine...

Best,

Chris

Phi Truong wrote: now as for the whole picture changing thing, when i first saw the headline, i thought it was someone who sneaked into the changing room and took O Sensei picture and posted it on youtube or something. i thought it's kinda gross, seeing a naked old man picture. then after reading some of the stuffs about various removal/obscuring of historical stuffs, i thought it was interesting info, but i just shrugged. it didn't help my aikido one bit. interesting to know, but that's about it.

I was wondering if it was some kind of Dorian Gray discussion but no, it's a conspiracy theory.

David Yap wrote: I am not sure about the 1st edition of Dynamic Aikido by Gozo Shioda which was published in 1968 but in the paperback edition of 1977, he mentioned Daito-ryu in the history of aikido. Cheers David Y

1969 (second edition) Dynamic Aikido: Mention of "Daito Aikijijitsu" = Check!, Inclusion of Daito history = Check!, Picture of Takeda Sokaku = Check!, Influence upon public perception = NIL!!

Last public demo by Ueshiba including Shioda's usual tricks = Check! Influence of Kodo Horikawa on Ueshiba = Nil, Influence of Takeda Sokaku on Ueshiba (and his students) = Obvious!!

Ken McGrew wrote: Once again we have tag team attacks from Harden and Chris against myself that are insulting in their form and intent. Surely others will jump in soon. Jun, how long will this be allowed? If I addressed these people they way they address me, which I have done in frustration on occasion after tiring of turning the other cheak, I would be reprimanded for doing so. Harden is the primary source of conflicts on these forums and yet he is allowed to stay without correction. Will the community allow him to continue to make these insulting posts against me without end?...

This reminds me of the Ken and David's Thread of yesteryear. Okay, I have jumped in and done my part.

P.S. What you need is divine intervention and only Graham can help you

L'Aikido, l'arme et l'esprit du samourai japonais
written by Tadashi Abe and Jean Zin - 1958
"After the Japanese-Russian war, Ueshiba went to Hokkaido in 1905 to study Daito Ryu with Takeda. In 1915 Ueshiba went back to Wakayama after completing his study of Daito Ryu."
In the same book is mentioned, Ueshiba kept the skill of "aiki" which is the foundation of the techniques he learned from Takeda to form his own "Aiki-Jitsu" which is the father of actual Aikido (1958). The rest of this article is about students and important persons who studied with Ueshiba.
The book gives the impression, Ueshiba formed his system "by himself" based on "aiki" after leaving Hokkaido in 1915.

The book was written in the time Morihei Ueshiba was still alive. All the AikiKai recommendations in the book are coming from Kishomaru Ueshiba, Nakazono, Tohei.
There are some"onliners" written by Morihei Ueshiba for the book.

The history part is probably from Tadashi Abe and is not accurate.

Eddy

Dan Harden wrote: Yup Stan Started writing about it in the 80's. More interesting was that no one really knew or understood that there really wasn't much by way of prewar aikido or even what Daito ryu was. Stan more or less discovered for the Western world that Ueshiba almost solely trained in DR for over twenty years and when he opened up shop he chose to teach DR. This was simply not known in the west. Most of those now famous Prewar deshi showed Stan their DR scrolls and he took photos. Recent expanded interviews are also showing that Takeda actually was showing up at the dojo every 3-6 months. With that I am also finding it peculiar that we hardly EVER read first hand accounts of the interactions between Ueshiba and Takeda ..by students...who most assuredly who were there. It's as if it never happened. There is a history -best left out of this thread- of repeated obfuscations and down playing. I will see if I can find where Kisshomaru apologized for that at one point. Anyway, as a capstone for me, I had a visiting Japanese Shihan tell me and a friend in 1992 that there was no more Daito ryu! This as both of us were training in Aikido and Daito ryu. To be fair DR owes a debt to Aikido in that it's popularity and access to it grew from Aikido. Not the least of which is that an incredible number of students came to it from aikido. Also that Ueshiba continued to grow and made significant changes to his art. Some of which I think are pretty significant and original. Some, young and old find the history fascinating, others could care less as they don't think it helps advance their training. Dan

Interesting, thank you!

As a side note, I practice some with a Hapkido school, and as far as I can tell they completely ignore their connection to DR as well. In fact I've mentioned to some of them videos I've seen of DR, such as DR's somewhat nasty looking shihonage, and they were pretty blown away. They'd never seen it before!