Reconstructing Omote and Ura: what is language really for anyway?

One of my longest standing essays was exploring the history in Aikikai of the use of the terms, "Omote" and "Ura."  The essay kept growing and getting more complicated as I discovered new information or realized I was just plain wrong on some points.  Then, Blogger had the essay revert to it's original uncorrected format after years of edits.  Many ideas had been touched on, and I had decided long ago that many were worth being expounded upon on their own.  Really, in two words I found a history of political infighting.  I came to reevaluate what language I used as I taught.  Language should be a tool for communication between teachers, students and systems.  Language should be a platform for growth.  Instead, language in Aikido appears to be more about loyalty to a specific teacher.

I was at an Aikido seminar, and the instructor was talking about being loose and flowing.  He showed a graceful version of Morote-dori Kokyu-Ho.  He talked about reaching deep into the ground and then touching the sky, and finally opening up while the spine was rippling.  He looked like an enormous graceful flower blossom gently opening.  And, I got to feel it - his throw was very effective.

One of his own students had travelled with him and was giving correction to a Kyu rank on the side of the mat.  He was saying, "Make like you're ramming a spear in my head."  Of course, it worked too.  And, it is the same technique taught in the same association (and the same dojo!) and called the same name.  The two versions felt and looked completely different.  As the practice went on, the differences between what the instructor wanted and what his student did became more divergent.  Other students reverted to long established reflexes and previously learned corrections.  Someone who never practiced Aikido was in the audience and commented, "they're not all doing the same thing."

Putting the poor etiquette aside, this drove home one of the many problems in Aikido language for me.  This is the deeper work of Aikido that we all aspire to, but we have no concise language to help us with this.  

I appreciate the Baguazhang I have studied - it gave me a tool to see the instructor was practicing and describing something like Water Palm, while his student was doing something like Heaven Palm.  The gross physical technique isn't that different, but the difference in intention and detail is huge.  "Water" becomes an attitude, a specific type of whole body movement, a strategy for neutralizing incoming force and a specific list of methods for issuing force back at a target.  The same happens for all eight of the basic Palms.  One word starts to communicate volumes.  

Contrast this with Aikido calling the same movement taught at this one seminar a modified Gyaku Gamae Ate, Kokyunage, Kokyu Ho, Sokumen Iriminage, Sayunage and many other things.  How do we understand and transmit our origins, our history, our evolution and our new discoveries?