Thank you for making the first comment to my blog.

Rereading my post, I see that I left out a clear statement of my thesis. My problem with Mr. Amdur’s book is the too common criticism of modern Aikido that it is watered down in comparison to pre-war Aikido. In much of the discussion, there seems to be a mythical past where real men trained seriously and that this is lost today. I think that it is more accurate to say that people who displayed real internal strength and martial prowess was rare in O Sensei’s time, just as it is rare today. I would argue that because of O Sensei’s efforts, there are more people that “get it” today than there ever were. The fact that most people who study modern Aikido don’t put in the necessary effort to achieve the potential doesn’t mean that no one does. My experience of let down when reading the chapter about misogi training probably has much to do with the fact that repeats so much of what I’ve heard from Sugano Sensei. I suppose I had the unrealistic anticipation that Ellis would say something that would change the way that I look at training instead of confirming exactly what my teachers had been saying all along.

Your point is well taken that there are many people who train in Aikido (perhaps myself included) that don’t the necessary personal investigations into the art. For them there would be much in the standard training that is “hidden” even when explicitly stated.

Edwin

The reason I mention the above is because I’ve seen the phenomenon so many times, in my experience. I’m the type of person who upon hearing something that may be relevant… I go look, just to be sure. Most people I encountered in Aikido seemed quite happy to not go look because they were certain they already had everything in their Aikido. But of course this applies to many other arts, too (not singling out Aikido for this mindset).

It’s all interesting to watch and Ellis’ wry choice of “Hidden in Plain Sight” was a good one.

FWIW

Mike Sigman