Reddit reviews Comprehensive Asian Fighting Arts (Bushido--The Way of the Warrior)

This is gonna be long, but I really wanted to attempt to answer your question honestly and without bias. I'd imagine some aikidoka might see some of what I say as anti-aikido or something, but it's really not. I'm very much a dedicated student of aikido and absolutely love the martial art. I just feel non-biased and critical examinations of history is necessary to understanding. Some of my specific dates might be wrong, but the general timeframe is sufficient for a general, basic understanding. Many raw nerves still exist and are passed down to the various students of the various organizations, and just speaking of these issues will be certain to incense someone. Too much misinformation is perpetuated by the need to "be loyal" and maintain the political status quo.

I don't have all my sources organized any more, but most all of it comes from Pranin's interviews and work, anyway. Anyone who doubts what is written can access the information freely at Aikido Journal. If you have trouble finding something I'll be happy to help track down a source. I'll assume you're familiar with Japanese martial arts history in general, too. :)

Well, aikido is best classified as "gendai budo" as opposed to a "koryu." That is, it's entirely a modern invention as opposed to the numerous koryu (old style) that we have data on, some of which can legitimately claim a tradition back as far as the 16th century, or maybe even further. If you're not versed on Japanese budo/bujutsu, the best books and the ones that really got me into it are Donn Draeger's Classical Bujutsu and Comprehensive Asian Fighting Arts. As you probably know, Draeger is pretty much responsible for the modern initiative in serious scholarship about haplology in general, not just Japanese or Asian arts.

Historically speaking, I feel it's important to understand aikido's history within this context if we want to understand how the "history" of Ueshiba and aikido as per the Aikikai differs from what is known. By the 1960s there were really only two biographies of Ueshiba available. The first was written by Fukiko Sunadomari, I believe, and is written under the auspices of the Omotyo-kyo religion, the Shinto-based religion that Ueshiba believed and was associated with from 1915 until his death. It's not very useful historically and is mostly interested with the religion of Omoto. The second was written by Ueshiba's son, Kisshomaru. This was written later, in the 1960s, I think.

To reign in my rambling before I go off the deep end, there's basically two historical problems encountered here. All in all, it seems to be a good book, but I've only seen English translations. My Japanese is faaaar too wretched to read kanji with any amount of speed, heh. Anyhow, Kisshomaru did two things in this book: 1.) He separated his father from the Omoto religion in an effort to disassociate aikido with Omoto-kyo. 2.) He completely removes Daito Ryu from the history of his father's martial arts altogether. There are other small discrepancies, but these two things, Daito Ryu and Omoto-kyo, are absolutely essential to understanding the history and to pretend they have no influence on Ueshiba or aikido is revisionist history.

Well, as a historian, this is a huge problem. But we need to also understand what Kisshomaru's motivations were. To do that we need to understand that Ueshiba retired from the day to day affairs of the dojo in 1942 and moved to the secluded country town of Iwama, Ibaragi prefecture, and turned over all affairs to Kisshomaru and Koichi Tohei (Kisshomaru will later attempt to remove Tohei's importance, as well, but that's another issue).

So this means that by 1942, Kisshomaru and Tohei are running aikido. Indeed, in the 1960s, aikido = Koichi Tohei, nothing short of it. Ask anybody who practiced aikido in America or Japan in the 1960s. He was absolutely the face of aikido. It's only later, after Tohei's departure from the Aikikai, that people really push to have Ueshiba as sort of the "God" of aikido. But the modern day aikido syllabus of Aikikai and basically any aikido that is not Yoshinkan or Iwama ultimately comes from the technical curriculum espoused by Tohei and Kisshomaru. Many things were removed or de-emphasized (such as weapons practice).

The 1960s saw a huge amount of growth for aikido, including the beginnings of its adventures overseas in America and Europe (namely, France and England, though we do know that people were teaching aikido there in the 1950s). This meant "preparing" aikido for the masses. Also, all this is going on in post-war Japan, where it is now "evil" to be part of the military or to be "martial" at all, and this is where the emphasis of the "non-violence" approach becomes strong. Ueshiba was a teacher at many military academies, including the Toyama school, up into the 1930s. Whatever Ueshiba's own personal views on violence and religion were, we know he taught military people throughout his career, up until the war.

Anyhow, this creates a question if we follow Kisshomaru's "history," such as "where did Ueshiba learn his budo?" If we believe him, Ueshiba dabbled in a few arts, with a passing nod to Daito, but pretty much made it all up himself. We know this is not true. We know, through Pranin's research of Daito Ryu made available in the 1980s, that Ueshiba appears in the logbooks of Daito more than any other single man. We also learn from Pranin that Ueshiba was granted certifications from Takeda (his teacher, and the founder of Daito Ryu) and accompanied Takeda as an assistant teacher. At some point (this is where the religious aspect comes in) Ueshiba distances himself from Takeda and Daito Ryu and we know they did not have a good relationship in Ueshiba's later life. However, this is enough to understand that Ueshiba studied Daito Ryu from around 1915 to somewhere in the 1920s or 1930s. Even Gozo Shioda's scroll from Ueshiba reads "Daito Ryu Aikijujutsu," not "aikido." The word didn't exist yet. Throughout this time, various names were used such as "Ueshiba ryu," "Ueshiba ryu jujutsu," "aikijujutsu" and various names. It's not until around 1942 that it gets a name, without any input or influence from Ueshiba at all.

The second question created by Kisshomaru's book but not answered is "where did Ueshiba get his religious views?" This wasn't that important to Kisshomaru and to this day, is not something most Japanese students care about. It's certainly true that Americans are far more interested in the "religious" or philosophical aspects of aikido much more than the Japanese. Personally, I've encountered much more resistance from non-Japanese than Japanese when discussing the history of aikido and the roots of where Ueshiba developed his physical and mental abilities.

Around 1915, I believe, Ueshiba's father became ill. Ueshiba was up in Hokkaido and his family was down south in Tanabe. So he began a long trip to see his sick father. Along the way he heard of a man named Onisaburo Deguchi, a religious man, and stopped at his compound to pray for his father. He becomes very interested in this religion and stays for a few days, in the end missing his father's death and arriving too late. To cut a very long and important story short, Ueshiba delves head first into Omoto-kyo and becomes a disciple of Deguchi, moving his entire family from Tanabe to the Omoto compound. This religion will be Ueshiba's religion throughout his life and many of his students from the 20s-30s have ties to it.

So to sum this up, the technical curriculum for the most part is from Daito Ryu. Indeed, I can only think of one set of techniques in aikido that is not from Daito, and that is aikido's method of doing hip throws, or koshi-waza. And all of the religious symbolism and what not comes down from the Omoto-kyo. We cannot leave these two things behind because of how utterly essential they are to understanding Ueshiba and how he created his martial art. However, if we believe this "official" history, neither of these were important at all. I feel this is a big mistake for someone interested in the actual history and not the history someone might wish it were.

This is a pretty long and convoluted post because I'm writing kind of quick. I don't want people to think I'm "anti-aikido" because I'm not. I love it. :) But we need to understand it in its own context and not the context we wish it were.

Some other articles on this subject worth reading are Challening the Status Quo, Is O-sensei Really the Father of Modern Aikido? and Iwama: Birthplace of Aikido, among many others.

And a very important issue that ties into the question you asked is the issue of Koichi Tohei and his relationship with Kisshomaru Ueshiba and the Aikikai Foundation. The best place to start is with Koichi Tohei: Ongaeshi - Repayment of Kindness.

Sorry for the length but it's a pretty important question and a huge can of worms if I don't approach it from the correct way. If you made it this far, I really appreciate it because I put a lot of thought into giving a brief (!!) but sufficient and correct beginning to an answer for your question.