benefits of jo practice?

Jamie Julien wrote: Anyone know where I could find good jo-waza dvd's for supplemental training!

I just ordered "The stuff of Aikido" by Mitsugi Saotome. I cannot tell you much about the DVD, I just know Saotome as an admirable shihan.

And while I never believe in style on aikido - kata and kumitachi of weapons training is quite different from shihan to shihan, so I do not know, if it is prudent to take any of the good ones. Maybe you better ask your sensei or your organisation.

Kind regards Dirk

Personally I feel the benefits of using a jo are that Aikido can be practiced

I agree, any excuse will do for me...

My teacher emphasizes a lot of very detailed stuff when we work with the jo.
What I find very helpful is the different ways of changing the distance to your partner by leading the jo in different ways.
But what I enjoy most is playing with the different levels in which one can turn or twist the jo (as a lever) easily without any force at all. That has also taught me a lot for te waza. The whole lever idea is pretty much missing when working with a sword (at least I believe so - please correct me if I am wrong, because we don´t work with the sword very often and I am not so familiar with it).
Distance and maai are apparent when working with the sword as well as when working with the jo, so that´s not so different, I guess.

I think that the staff is probably one a very small handful of weapons that has utilitarian use in that it can be a walking stick for hikes, and you can use it to help stretch too.