Part about judo from arcticle about Takeshita Isamu. There are some informations about relations Judo (Kano) - Aikido (Ueshiba) etc.
The Process of Forming Aikido and Japanese Imperial Navy Admiral Isamu Takeshita: Through the analysis of Takeshita’s diary from 1925 to 1931
Fumiaki Shishida (Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan)
www.isdy.net/pdf/eng/2008_05.pdf
Relation to Kodokan Judo
The first appearance of the judo founder Jigoro Kano in Takeshita’s diary was in October 2, 1930. “The master [Ueshiba] met Mr. Jigoro Kano under Mr. Oki’s guidance.”
Perhaps this was the first meeting between them. Kano seems to have observed Ueshiba’s demonstration from that day to October 28, the day of Kano’s letter of thanks for his visit [Ueshiba, K., 1977, p.205]. Tomiki also said, “Master Kano visited Ueshiba at his dojo under admiral Takeshita’s guidance. That was a plain fact.”(Shishida (Ed.), 1983, p.3.) The diary in March 1, 1931 said, “I went to the dojo at Ushigome-Wakamatsu town and managed to get around hundred and fifty guests to observe the master’s demonstration from 2:30 p.m. Admiral Takarabe, general Fukuda, general Machida, Mr. Jigoro Kano etc., were the main guests.” We can see that Ueshiba and Kano were no strangers to each other.
On the other hand, we can find restlessness in the Judo world through Chikatami Honda’s’ remarks at a round-table talk after the first national tournament in the presence of the Emperor in 1929. This is made clear in the prominent voluminous book “Showa Tenran Shiai ” [Dainihon-yubenkai-kodansha, 1930, pp.722-723] where it is mentioned that Honda said, “I have some thoughts about Kodokan-Judo. Briefly speaking, there is a person named Ueshiba who practices dangerous joint techniques. ... As vice admiral Todoroki said, there are techniques in recent judo that are not very effective in the case of a real fight like a fight in a trench. ... The following suggestion has been made: why doesn’t Kodokan introduce these techniques; at least a chief secretary of Kodokan should check them for its useful information. ... I as well as master Kano have no objection to checking it, but I have no interest to become his pupil. There are plenty of valuable excuses to the criticism that Kodokan-judo is not efficient due to the fact that judo has no way to finish off an opponent.”
Honda, a chief secretary of Kodokan, Judo headquarters, seemed to think negatively of those techniques and Ueshiba. However, Kano thought highly of Ueshiba’s skill and said even that this is true judo, once he observed Ueshiba’s demonstrations, accompanied by Shuichi Nagaoka and Kyuzo Mifune, two of his best instructors according to Yoshio Sugino [Editorial Department of the Aiki News, 2006, p.197]. Soon after that, Kano sent two judo students to Ueshiba to study his martial arts in order to introduce it into the Judo system. Such attitude would have influence on senior judo practitioners. The diary states on December 11, 1930, “9 a.m. went to a dojo at Meguro. Tamio Kurihara and [blank space], senior instructors at the Butoku-kai special school for Japanese martial arts, visited there and observed the practice.” Kurihara was the champion of the first national tournament in the presence of the Emperor. We don’t understand his true reason and thoughts for his visit. But negative impacts had been smoldering in the judo world, because judo practitioners were not able to fight with Ueshiba’s pupils to compare their abilities due to lack of a free or competitive practice system like judo and kendo in Ueshiba’s martial arts.
There is an incident in 1938 that reflects this atmosphere. After Kenji Tomiki, a strong judo practitioner and Ueshiba’s senior student, wrote a long article titled ‘The future of judo and the Aiki-budo’ in the newspaper in Manchukuo, it was reproduced in a journal of judo dividing it into five parts. Strangely enough, however, the title was suddenly changed one-sidedly at the third time of publication with a brief comment informing about the dissatisfaction from subscribers [Shishida, 2005, pp.516-517]. Tomiki’s intention in this article was the same as Kano’s and Kano encouraged him to learn Ueshiba’s martial arts to develop judo in the future. Tomiki said, “I visited master Kano, 77 years old, to greet him, before leaving for my job in Manchuria, March, 1936. Master Kano said, ‘Old jujutsu, which Mr. Ueshiba acquired well, was something like Ueshiba’s martial art. Even Tenjin-shinyo-ryu or others that I learned. But it is difficult to think of how to make a person practice these arts.’ When I answered, ‘That’s true. But shouldn’t I do research for this purpose? He said, ‘Try it, study it, though it is such a difficult problem.’ That was the last time we would meet in my life.” [Shishida (Ed.), 1982, p.5]
It is clear that the two had a common purpose. Tomiki became a disciple to learn Aiki-jujutsu or Aiki-bujutsu, and he thought that it could contribute to the development of both judo and Aiki-bujutsu. But Tomiki was not Kano and he received a lot of criticism from judo practitioners. Tomiki, judo 5th dan in 1930, was used as a partner by Ueshiba, and took many break-falls to set off Ueshiba’s performance. Because of this, some observers got the impression that Aiki-bujutsu was stronger than judo. This had to be disquieting for judo people. up junior naval officers, Kikangakko, or engineering school, and Keiri gakko, or accounting school. The arrival of Ueshiba influenced such situations in budo education. Vice admiral Seikyo (or Masayasu) Asano, alumna of Takeshita at the Kaigun-heigakko, the naval academy, introduced Takeshita and other army officers, as both he and Ueshiba were adherents of Omoto, and he thought highly of Ueshiba’s martial art. Therefore, many army officers were initiated into his school. “Masamitsu Kinebuchi visited home from Edajima [at Kure, Hiroshima, where the Heigakko was located]. The purpose was to practice Aiki-bujutsu.” (January 5, 1930). Kinebuchi was a judo practitioner through his life. We can find the result of his visit in following description.
September 6, 1929. “In the afternoon, visited master Ueshiba. He said he was quite delighted as he beat judo instructors at the Kikan-gakko at Maizuru.” With respect to his taking delight, we can read the strain in his instruction. The relevant descriptions are as follows:
January 17, 1930. “A captain [an illegible word] and Mr. Seiichi Sato, both auditors and instructors at the Heigakko, visited a dojo and observed the class.”
February 13, 1930. “A letter by Kinebuchi about the Heigakko was received.”
October 7, 1930. “Judo instructors came and started to practice for two weeks.”
There is an interesting description, though the descriptions concerning techniques were almost nothing in his diary.
December 2, 1930. “9 a.m.. came to the dojo and practiced. Taught [Minoru] Mochizuki some techniques to emulate judo.”
Ueshiba’s success must have been the result of efforts to study judo and other martial arts as applied techniques. Minoru Mochizuki was a judo practitioner and one of the two students who Kano sent to Ueshiba to learn his martial art. The fact that even Takeshita, around 70 years old, taught him shows that at least Ueshiba's senior pupils studied those techniques. These descriptions surely show that Ueshiba had already studied those skills well as well as the basics of Daito-ryu-jujutsu.
Students of Kenji Tomiki learned those techniques as part of the koryu-daisan-no-kata as basics. However, it is difficult to see a series of those techniques in the textbooks of various aikido organizations. That means that they might have disappeared from Ueshiba’s successors in the process of being handed down to new generations. We should at least understand how Ueshiba showed deep interest in counter techniques against Judo, while we should admit that there are aikido practitioners who value his performances after the second world war above that. No budo will spread without strength. Ueshiba’s martial art spread through his shows of strength against strong opponents, as Kishomaru Ueshiba emphasized in various anecdotes in his biography of his farther. With reference to this, we can appreciate the meaning of the critical remarks of Gozo Shioda (1915-1994), the founder of Yoshinkan aikido. “Current aikido has no core. It is empty in substance. People try to reach the summit without going along the substantial part. So aikido deteriorates into dance or something. Unless we thoroughly acquire the basics, we can not stand atop the summit.”
That reminds us that, at the time when Ueshiba caused a sensation in Tokyo, Aiki-bujutsu included real skills against other martial arts as well as theory.
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