Ellis' post about cover-up and Ueshiba

Ellis Amdur wrote: A bunch of stuff Best Ellis Amdur

Dear Dan,

Don't you just hate it when he nails it like that? And you know, he really does think he's all that and a bag of chips, too.

Are we going to let him get away with that? Text me....

Hugs and kisses,

Heather

Peter A Goldsbury wrote: So, since Arikawa Sensei did not give permission for the interview to be published (yet),

Professor,

What are the conditions that Arikawa Sensei gave in order for the interview to be finally published?

Thank you,
Charles

Charles Hill wrote: Professor, What are the conditions that Arikawa Sensei gave in order for the interview to be finally published? Thank you, Charles

Charles,

He did not give any. He simply stated that it was "too early". (Of course, Stan taped the interview.)

Fred Little wrote: Dear Dan, Don't you just hate it when he nails it like that? And you know, he really does think he's all that and a bag of chips, too.

My Dearest Fred
No, he doesn't.
He's up to his eyeballs sick of it all. Damn fool has this notion that once the book is out he can walk away from it all....tic...toc...tic...toc!
As you well know from the content - I can only imagine the debates that are about to begin and the cries for the author to respond!!

I don't even know if I'll be here by then, with Ellis the book could be out in late summer or be out in the trash can next week due to frustration. I am actively weaning myself off the net, I'm.down to just two forums and getting less and less involved in those. I am glad to be on the other side of it all and looking to get out. I have a lot of hard work ahead of me with a group of teachers and students and the forums interest me less and less every day I read them.

Are we going to let him get away with that? Text me.... Hugs and kisses, Heather

Oh he does enjoy it when he gets to be witty, pithy, sarcastic, cutting, dismissive and informative all in one fell swoop, dudn't he? Even more fun is seeing the gleam in his eyes and the smug look he gets on his face during the delivery!!
Glad I don't have to live with him...I think I'd kill him in his sleep!

Ask him to recite his Daito ryu poem about the stupefying diversity of the schools- I almost fell over laughing.
Text you? I wouldn't know where to begin. I delete text messages and tell clients and friends to knock it off.

Blowing kisses from across "the padded room."
Dan

Ellis Amdur wrote: Gather round...it wasn't about Ueshiba and Takeda at all. It was simply politics. Best Ellis Amdur

The result of that fallen tree is, it will be largely ignored, and no one will question if it made a sound.

For some odd reason, I envision in my head a fictitious skit out of Monty Python's "Holy Grail" with Chapman and Cleese on horse back in full armor leisurely riding in the woods as they approach a falling tree that crashes next to them (as it falls says "ouch"- in a voice over of Terry Jones) Cleese heard it, but purposely ignoring it, as Chapman turns to Cleese and says, " Did you hear something?" and Cleese with his usual tone of insulting invalidation, and self-importance of denial says, What? I didn't hear anything? Chapman in a negating, and authoritative manner, "But I did hear something." The tree moans a bit in discomfort. They stop, Chapman points, says, "that tree!" Cleese says, in a tone that is even more insulting, and degrading in his denial, "No you didn't." Champan, gravely offended and persist, says, "But I did!" Then the Tree responses to Chapman (in firm obnoxious of pitchy denial,) "You didn't here anything," Chapman, insists to Clesse the tree talks, Cleese argues it didn't say a thing, trees don't talk. Chapman argues back he did hear the tree talk. The tree deigns it. Chapmen offended insisting the tree talked. Cleese deigns it once again. Then Clesse calls Chapman a moron for arguing with a tree, he didn't hear and doesn't talk. The tree confirms Cleese. Chapmen shocked and insulted, stubbornly argues he isn't hearing things, the tree did talk to him, as they ride away --fade out.

I don't know how many people are going to listen.

Peter A Goldsbury wrote: Not long before he died, Stanley Pranin and I spent six hours interviewing Sadateru Arikawa Sensei, who, along with Shigenobu Okumura, was the prime 'historian' in the Aikikai. I drew up a list of questions for this interview: questions like what were the defining attributes of Aikido, in comparison with Daito-ryu; whether the Aikikai (= Kisshomaru Ueshiba) had 'doctored' the history of aikido. Arikawa Sensei sought the advice, not of the Aikikai, but of Katsuyuki Kondo, of Daito-ryu, who urged him to give the interview. He gave the interview, which Stan taped (with Arikawa Sensei's permission). Actually, Arikawa Sensei was Stan's 'protector' in the Aikikai Hombu and, believe me, I know what this means. So, since Arikawa Sensei did not give permission for the interview to be published (yet), my own private response has been to complement Stan's researches by publishing the results of my own research. I was never in a position to conduct interviews and ask the questions that Stan did not ask, but I suspect that I have a deeper acquaintance with the crucial cultural aspects. The result is the series of AikIWeb columns.

I am a little surprised there has been no reaction to this. Maybe Dr. Goldsbury has mentioned this before and I am the only one not in the loop?

Doing a bit of reading between the lines (perhaps a lot), I am understanding that Arikawa Sensei revealed information in the interview that would possibly damaging to the Aikikai/Ueshiba family and pertained to the very topic of this thread, namely the influence of Daito Ryu on the Founder. And to extrapolate a bit further, the interview and its contents have still not been revealed by Stan Pranin, perhaps so as not to offend the Aikikai/Ueshiba family.

Am I hot or cold here?

Charles

Philip Burgess wrote: For some odd reason, I envision in my head a fictitious skit out of Monty Python's "Holy Grail" with Chapman and Cleese on horse back in full armor leisurely riding in the woods

They were walking through the woods with a man clapping coconuts together to simulate hoof beats.

David

Philip Burgess wrote: For some odd reason, I envision in my head a fictitious skit out of Monty Python's "Holy Grail"

Then this pops into my head from the actual movie After the singing and dancing parody in the film. "On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place." That is when Ellis made reference to the "homeland" and "politics" stuff.

And it didn't stop there I searched on online for this, all building to the last line. It is so fitting to the "homeland" and "politics" way of things- all inspired by what I got from reading Ellis' post. :

Arthur: Old woman!
Dennis: Man.
Arthur: Man, sorry.
Dennis: I'm 37.
Arthur: What?
Dennis: I'm 37. I'm not old.
Arthur: I did apologize about the "old woman," but from behind you looked, well...
Dennis: What I object to is that you automatically treat me like an inferior.
Arthur: Well, I am king.
Dennis: Oh, king, eh? And how'd you get that? By exploiting the workers! By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arthur: I am your king!
Woman: Well I didn't vote for you!
Arthur: You don't vote for kings.
Woman: Well how'd you become king then?
[Angelic music plays...]
Arthur: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering silmite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. THAT is why I am your king!
Dennis interrupting: Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!

Philip Burgess wrote: Dennis interrupting: Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government! Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!

Ah, yes.... Seems to me I recall that even BEFORE the "king" shows up all the "masses" are doing is mucking out the filth and arguing about the politics ...

The pretenses on both sides are equally skewered.

Nothing ever really changes, in other words ...

The tree deigns it.

The tree did WHAT?

Best,
Ron

deign  /deɪn/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [deyn] Show IPA –verb (used without object) 1. to think fit or in accordance with one's dignity; condescend: He would not deign to discuss the matter with us. –verb (used with object) 2. to condescend to give or grant: He deigned no reply. 3. Obsolete. to condescend to accept.

Demetrio Cereijo wrote: FWIW: Here is the late fifties Tadashi Abe - Jean Zin book previously mentioned. On the other hand, I haven't found references to Takeda/Daito-ryu in Mochizuki Minoru - Jim Alcheik book "Ma Mêthode d'Aikido Jiu Jitsu" from the same era.

Minoru Mochizuki talks about the roots of aikido at p.8 of his book.

"Aikido come from Kendo, the Daîto school took all the body movement of it and call the art Aiki-jutsu. Ten years ago (the book was written during 1956) Ueshiba add religious notions and flexibility to the art and change the name to Aikido."

Demetrio Cereijo wrote: FWIW: Here is the late fifties Tadashi Abe - Jean Zin book previously mentioned. On the other hand, I haven't found references to Takeda/Daito-ryu in Mochizuki Minoru - Jim Alcheik book "Ma Mêthode d'Aikido Jiu Jitsu" from the same era.

And here's what Abe wrote about the roots of Aïkido in his book of1958 :

Back from Wakayama in 1915, Ueshiba began to teach a blending art of all martial arts he learned before, mostly base on Aïki-jitsu of Takeda Shi Han.

In 1930, Admiral Isamu Takeshita asked Ueshiba to teach to the officers of the military police and then call his art: Aiki-budo.

In 1938, Ueshiba left his rank of Shi-han from the imperial court and move from Tokyo to Iwama, then remove the word Jitsu and replace it by the "Do", to form Aiki-do.

Ellis Amdur wrote: Let us contrast the koryu world to that of genuine men-at-arms (albeit this can include practitioners of koryu). Recently, I went to dinner with three guys I didn't know that well, after training in combative stuff together - the best way to put it is we didn't know each other well enough to joke around: all three were not only hugely credentialed as fighters - they WERE fighters. All were scary good. So the four of us were talking and the subject of religion, Darwin, and a variety of such topics arose, and we, around the table had quite divergent opinions. But it was a very polite conversation, among the most enjoyably polite debates I've participated in a long time. We all knew that each of us could cause any of the others painful regrets if offended, and thus, despite strong differences of opinion, we treated each other with courtesy.

My church council could learn a lot from those guys.

Before koryu was koryu, that was surely the norm. But once it became an antique in which people were proud of the fighters who USED to be in the ryu, or of the kata, the history, lineage,etc., then all sorts of arguments arose as to who was legit, whose line was more mainline, etc. Clear? Koryu in the 20th century already had a lot of wankers, of which Daito Fighto Almighto Always Righto & Aikido-bunnies & Bliss-ninnies are merely variant new developments.

So we're wannabes and has-beens at the same time!

Seriously, Ellis, thanks for the explanation. A lot of this reinforces Keith Larman's point that today's "hidden" information was rather prosaic and mundane stuff in contemporary times.

Ron Tisdale wrote: The new Star Trek was good, and very enjoyable.

Yup! My wife and I saw it twice.

Regards,