dios kaze wrote:
am I to understand that you are saying that Aikido is a perfected form of an earlier art. Rather like an adult getting back to the babies way of breathing, is Aikido getting back to an earlier Martial art?

I'm going to open a can of worms here, and then get out of the way.

I don't think Ueshiba invented anything. What I think he was is, one of the greatest synthesizers in the history of Budo. NONE of the techniques or particular applications found in Aikido is newer than at least 400 years old, and since I can show you proof of most of them going back to pyramidsof Egypt, I tend to suspect that all of them go back that far.

What Ueshiba did, was take a very brutal art, Daito Ryu, as taught by Takeda Sokaku, and meld it with the philosophy of Omoto-kyo. This melding is what made it possible for him, and for those who have followed him, to extend their use of it's principles to every corner of life. Kano Sensei tried to do this with Judo, but his dream got hijacked by thieves searching for Olympic gold and glory. I could write extensively about applying Judo on and off the mat, but 99.99% of Judoka are only interested in competitive judo. The rest of us seem to end up doing at least a little aikido.

Most of what Ueshiba is famous for can be found by other, equally skilled masters in other arts, and most of the quotes that are associated with him by people outside Japan actually come from much more ancient Japanese writings (the Japanese he was speaking and writing for understood this, so I'm not implying he plagarized them).

Given the above, you could say that Ueshiba borrowed everything that is Aikido. Or you could say like a cook baking a cake from flour, eggs, and sugar that are already in the kitchen, that he created it from scratch. How you want to look at it is up to you.

Peter "the Budo Bum has put on his asbestos undies, so flame away" Boylan