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Pre-war and post-war Aikido — what it is about.
If you're keen enough to read Aikido related articles
or you're a regular practitioner of the art
sooner or later you'll look at somebody mentioning it.
Generally people refer to pre-war Aikido as old-style, rigid and militaristic.
Something that's not really worth studying.
While post-war Aikido is dynamic, circular and modern.
In other words, the art as we know it today.
So, how is it for real?
To answer this question or similar ones
one must study all the historical documents available.
One of the best references for studying pre-war Aikido is the Noma Dojo picture collection in 1936
and "Budo" film of Asahi News of 1935.
What is evident by looking at these hand-picked images
is that O Sensei was still including these rigurous complex pins intrinsic to Daito Ryu Aikijujutsu into his art.
However, O Sensei wouldn't teach these techniques in his later years
because he considered them unnecessary.
Throughout his teaching career, Founder will often make remarks that his Aikido was constantly evolving
therefore it's only natural that
as the years passed, O Sensei's Aikido became more balanced and polished.
But despite of this, are the pre-war and post-war Aikido forms really different?
Well, after studying dozens of documents, I've come up with the confident conclusion
(which is possible to demonstrate even with the limited resources available)
that, as early as 1935, O Sensei's Aikido was a dynamic and mature martial art
and essentially the same as it was for years.