Combat and war affecting the early training training of Aikido

Kevin Leavitt wrote: Awesome. If u get to Stuttgart let me know. One of my training partners/students is going to command Marine Corps Special Operqtions School at Lejuene next summer, so I am looking forward to working with the MARSOF guys there. I have done CQB and that is my background so I concentrate my H2H training more to deal with managing that environment...sort of like the house of pain, but more tactical. MACP transitioned a couple of years ago to TTPs, and detention/control techniques. I am not a huge fan of doing that at that point in training, but that's the way it goes in the institutional environment. That's another story. Give me a shout if you are ever this way.

Will do, I would love to get back to Germany. This year I came from 130 deg F in AFG and landed on a cool, misty mid-morning in Frankfurt which was one of the best sensations in my life. I would to get back and spend more than a handful of hours in Germany.

One of my jobs is training MARSOC teams in their pre-deployment workup at Irwin...so maybe I'll run into your friend one day.

Christopher Li wrote: Tomiki did stop in at hombu occasionally, but I don't think he had a major impact there. I don't know if Shioda stopped in or not - but I've never heard that he did. He did stay in Iwama for a short time, but disappeared one day, only to turn up with the opening of the Yoshinkan. Best, Chris

In Tomiki's case he gave an occasional class into the early 1960s but far from regular - he was quite busy at Waseda. I think it is safe to say he was not part of the post-war teaching cadre but might have been brought in as a guest lecturer so to speak. He shows up every now and then in pictures of honbu events well past that but I would guess not as part of the official structure.

With a few exceptions I always had the impression there was a real house cleaning - it might not even have been deliberate. Ueshiba M. was not there so why bother or even more simply the centre of your life moves elsewhere.

I just watched this film about PTSD, interesting and also quite heartbreaking study of human suffering
related to war.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...v=KaX-pvae4gw#!

Bes regards
Lars

Although it is dated now, this is/was an interesting thread. I would like to point out a couple things:

(1) As regards the original posting and the question of Ueshiba's war experience's influence on the development of aikido: please note that at the time Ueshiba was in Hawaii and stated that his biggest regret was taking human life, a lot had happened since he had taken human life. It's possible that Ueshiba's time in the Russo-Japanese War affected his aikido, but that he didn't regret any taking of human life until much later. So, perhaps war's affect on aikido is unconnected to the conversation in Hawaii.

(2) According to Shioda Gozo in Aikido Shugyo and Aikido Jinsei, his experience of fighting (and killing?) in Shanghai during WWII greatly affected his aikido.

(2a) I talked with a senshusei graduate who told me that all Shioda's stories are bunk. I have no way to evaluate that claim. However, if it is true... then, since Shioda was training with Ueshiba after his Russo-Japanese experiences but before WWII, it's possible that Shioda believed confabulating a story about life and death experience was important because he believed a life and death experience was important to budo training based on his time training with Ueshiba.

(3) 1924-1925 is not a random time to go to Mongolia. It was just at the time Mongolia became communist. That raises the question in my mind of why Ueshiba was interested in Mongolia. Did he know what he was getting into? Mongolia is a strange place to go to set up a community since farming there is very difficult and the winters are extreme.