Reconstructing Omote and Ura: Aikikai's Kisshomaru Ueshiba, the Second Doshu

I've read up on other styles and tried to be fair and accurate - despite never having been there and never having met the principle players.  Now it is the turn for my own style, and I think I had more difficulty with the research.  While outsiders refer to Aikikai as a style, this is not really the truth.  Aikikai is a loose organization comprised of many teachers of many lineages who date their association with O Sensei (or one of his students) to a variety of differing times or locations.  This is not a homogenous, tightly controlled, clearly identified "style."  Many groups that have their own clear identity still come under the Aikikai umbrella, and some of these in-house factions openly disagree with other Aikikai factions on matters of technique, philosophy, and the importance of weapons use.  A wide variety of expression is tolerated.  

In North America, we are used to considering Toyoda, Yamada, Kanai, Akira Tohei, Chiba, Saotome, and Kawahara and many others as all separate.  All of these men and their lineages are allied with the IAF and Aikikai Hombu!  It is possible to instantly recognize differences between New England Aikikai and New York Aikikai lineages, but the head teachers were students together. 

For around 50 years, the Second Doshu was the administrative head of Aikido's largest organization, a prolific author (around 20 books on Aikido), and a regular instructor.  He was the primary teacher for most of the shihan who were deployed - and the man who deployed them.  He is the one who brought the first foreign students into Aikido.  Kisshomaru was the one who arranged for the first public demonstrations and opened the art to the general public.  I understand these accomplishments required Kisshomaru Ueshiba to take a stand against his father. 

The dojo he built became the platform for the career of other teachers, even those who left the Aikikai.  His efforts revived Aikido after the war and made our collective art a household name.  He is still damned with faint praise by people in his own organization.  He is portrayed as the principle villain of the story of Koichi Tohei by Ki Society students.  Kisshomaru Doshu is portrayed as the peacemaker who was able to bring many Aikido schools back into the fold. He never apparently kicked anyone out of Aikikai, and kept an environment where people could always return.  He oversaw the most turbulent times in Aikido (if not the most difficult times in Japan and the world). It is easy to blame people outside my association for the problems, but I do believe it takes two people to fight. I have written about how Shioda, Tomiki and others became unwelcome during Tohei's Head Instructor time in Hombu but the truth is Kisshomaru Ueshiba was there too, and not without influence.  Mr Goldsbury's (IAF Chairman) excellent obituary still describes a man of conscience:  "I think he deeply felt the divisions and discord within the Aikido world and grieved very much at the split between himself and Koichi Tohei, for example."

In making an effort to research the second Doshu, I found I don't know much about him for all that I probably owe so much about my Aikido to him.  As a foreigner learning Aikido in a foreign country in a standardized fashion under a Hombu Aikikai deployed Shihan, the Second Doshu did indeed have a huge influence on my Aikido.  Kawahara Sensei was very polite and deferred to Doshu and never spoke ill of him in any way - and truthfully spoke of Kisshomaru Doshu seldom in his broken English.  None of my research was influenced by Sensei.  Training at the only dojo in the entire province before the influence of YouTube, I had practiced for years before I was really aware there were different styles. Kawahara Sensei was everything Aikido.

I started training in 1990, and I tested for Shodan in November 1998.  Two months later, I heard Kisshomaru Doshu had passed away.  I had been reading his books for a few years, and had some vague poorly formed plans of traveling to Japan that ended up being put on hold as I was just starting my nursing career.  So, I never met Kisshomaru Doshu either - when I would travel to major seminars like the 30th anniversary of the USAF, it was Waka Sensei Moriteru Ueshiba, the eventual Third Doshu, who was traveling to teach.  My Shodan certificate still identifies me as a yudansha under Kisshomaru Doshu according to a Japanese visitor who translated my certificate, though I was never even in the same city as him when he was alive.

When the Second Doshu died, I asked if it was appropriate to put a picture of Kisshomaru Ueshiba in our dojo and Sensei asked me to please do so.  And, I did.  While Tohei lineage students will tell me about when Tohei's pictures were removed from dojos, I saw very few dojo ever post a picture of the second Doshu - O Sensei's picture is posted instead.

Having never met Kisshomaru Ueshiba, I did have a chance to get to know him through books.  I ate up the information.

My first Aikido book was The Way of Harmony.  From Shirata Rinjiro, translated by John Stevens who now appears to be the primary translator for the Ueshiba family:

Kisshomaru remembers well an incident that occurred when he was a primary school student.  He got into a fight with an American boy who lived nearby; the boy started throwing stones, and Morihei, who sensed something wrong, ran out into the street, but slipped in a puddle, allowing the boy to escape.  To this day, Kisshomaru is unsure whether Morihei was furious at the American boy for hurling rocks or at his son - then a rather weak and spiritless child - for shrinking from the challenge.

I eventually bought a copy of Kisshomaru Doshu's The Spirit of Aikido.  I fell in love with the language and the philosophy.  

"Accompanying the dramatic developments in science, technology, and material civilization in modern times is the aggravation of the human spirit which experiences restlessness, insecurity and loss of direction... Mankind today stands on the brink of global disaster."

"Behind the advances in scientific knowledge and technology, as well as the attendant economic prosperity, exists the hollowness of the human spirit...We see in the midst of material abundance, artificial comforts and the massive bureaucratization of life a growing dissatisfaction and frustration underscoring the malaise that is spreading throughout the world.  More than ever before in history we need to recover what it means to be truly human and truly caring."

I loved the quote as soon as I read it, and I do keep this as a guiding principle at work.  I was left with an impression of a man who was much more functional in English than he ever apparently was.  I also found out years later he was a student of Economics and Political Science which I found a little incongruous with his comments that appeared to call for spiritual growth over economics and politics. The poetry of the language is probably due in part to the translator's skills, but it does show Kisshomaru Ueshiba to be a learned and thoughtful man.  He is also quite freely writing about Ki, which led me to not understand the Tohei lineage Ki Society statements that Kisshomaru was opposed to Ki in Aikido training.  Tohei's full list of specific exercises is not taught, but Ikkyo Undo and Funakogi Undo are very commonly done.  

I had one sempai tell me, "grabbing Doshu was like grabbing smoke!"  For every one such compliment to his abilities that I heard, I had heard many more that dismissed his abilities.  In Angry White Pygamas, Twigger describes seeing a demo by Kisshomaru Ueshiba and he declares it was fake.  In Goldsbury's obituary, he refers to the surgical precision of Doshu's technique and describes a man dedicated to his father, his duties and his ideals.  Comments by Stanley Pranin surrounding the "Official History" of the Founder, his writings and the Founder's history as a Daito Ryu student essentially call the Second Doshu a liar.  Other writers declare Kisshomaru Ueshiba the "true father of Aikido as we practice it today." 

Kisshomaru Ueshiba, the second Doshu, was born in Ayane, Kyoto.  He was the fourth child and third son of Morihei Ueshiba.  His two older brothers died in childhood.  He lived in the Omoto Kyo compound when O Sensei was teaching Daito Ryu at the Ueshiba Juku, and as a young boy Kisshomaru would have been in contact with the prewar generation of students, ultra-nationalist politicians, military leaders, and the Omoto Kyo pacifist sect leadership.  Kisshomaru was partly raised in the Omoto Kyo compound, and likely steeped in this religious tradition. 

Kisshomaru Ueshiba was born in 1921, so when the Kobukan dojo was established Tokyo in 1925-1927 he was still a child, around 4-6 years old.  He would have been 9 years old when Manchuria was invaded.  He would have been 11 in 1932 when Shioda Sensei started to practice; the same year when Nakakura was married to Kisshomaru's older sister and being groomed as the lineage holder.  Kisshomaru Ueshiba was not the first choice of a successor.  

In 1937 when the schism between Takeda and Morihei Ueshiba became official, he would have been 15 to 16 years old and this is when Kisshomaru started to officially train.  Kenji Tomiki had left for Manchuria the year before.  1937 is also the year that Nakakura divorced Kisshomaru's older sister meaning this succession plan for Morihei Ueshiba had failed.  

Beyond his sword practices as a boy, I find little saying Kisshomaru Doshu studied other martial arts.   He was perhaps the most pure student of Morihei Ueshiba during the war, with a resume that mentions his father's influence almost exclusively.  Most of the other students of Ueshiba did cross train openly, or they drew on their other previous experiences freely. 

The second Doshu started training in Aiki-Budo earlier than Koichi Tohei, who arrived three years after Kisshomaru had started to train.  The two young men would both be around 19 years old when they met in 1940.  Morihei Ueshiba would be 57.  By 1942, Koichi Tohei was conscripted into the army, Morihei Ueshiba quit his teaching posts, and Kisshomaru was given the responsibility for the Hombu dojo at the age of 21 while he was still in university.  Mr Goldsbury has posted that young Kisshomaru was exempt from military service because of his poor health.  Many other students left for the war.  There are anecdotes on the web of him saving the dojo building from fire during bombing raids.  It does not sound like Kisshomaru Ueshiba inherited his father's teaching posts in the military.

Was giving the dojo to his son a compliment on his abilities?  Kisshomaru writes, 

""If you own a dojo, you will be pressed with various business matters such as management and other affairs, and become less devoted to Budo.  Then your skill will decrease."  This was the Founder's cherished belief...managing a dojo was a secondary matter.  As soon as the Headquarters in Tokyo was established, he sought new land free from the administrative problems of the city training place."

This paints a very rosy picture of O Sensei's decision to leave Tokyo in 1942 - but it may be accurate.  The implicit warning above is that being an administrator meant Kisshomaru would be less of a martial artist.  Certainly, this is what people like Tohei and his followers say is what happened.

Three years later in 1945, Japan surrendered and carrying on the family business in the Japanese capital became a crime until 1948.  He still graduated with his degree in Economics and Political Science from Waseda University in 1946.  After convocation, conditions were poor enough that Kisshomaru Ueshiba left Tokyo himself and moved to Iwama for three years, only returning to Tokyo the year after the ban on Aikido was lifted.  After the war, the dojo was damaged and now housed 30 homeless families.  The last of these families only left in 1955.  

On his return to Tokyo with a wife and children, as well as needing to support his Uchi-Deshi (I always thought it would be the other way around), he was forced to take a job at a securities firm to pay the bills (Per Mr Goldsbury's post mentioned above, O Sensei was horrified at this turn of events.)  The Hombu dojo still taught a minimum of three classes a day for the beginning.  The current Doshu is quoted as saying his father started working in 1949 and stayed for seven years, meaning he left the job around 1956 when he was about 35 years old.  Kisshomaru taught early morning and evening classes during this time, and even occasionally in the middle of the day.  When possible, he travelled to Iwama to train with his father.  

Tohei started to travel to Hawaii in 1953.  In 1955, Shioda was able to start his own dojo and system and a sense of competition apparently lead to Tohei being asked to take the Head Instructor title soon after.  O Sensei would have been around 67.  Kisshomaru would still be working at his job, but did manage to publish his first book on Aikido two years later.  Tohei was then traveling frequently and not a consistent presence at the dojo according to many students.  Kisshomaru Ueshiba and Koichi Tohei would have had sporadic communication being on opposite sides of the world much of the time.  They diverged in their experience in Aikido, martial arts in general, and in the rest of their lives.

Kisshomaru Ueshiba was a wartime student but not a Daito Ryu student.  The link to Daito Ryu was marketed as being less relevant - but Kisshomaru personally was not a Daito Ryu student, and his own viewpoint would have been informed by a father who felt justified in separating from his master.

When did Kisshomaru's training start?  In an interview by Stanley Pranin:  "Asked in an interview in 1983 when he began training in the martial arts, he (Kisshomaru Doshu) responded, "There is a Japanese proverb which says, 'A shop boy near a temple will chant a sutra untaught.' In just the same way, I had already begun my practice when I was a boy without even realizing it..."  

From the same interview, "By around 1936 it had become my duty to take sword ukemi for my father when he went places to give demonstrations. I practiced a little kendo... and [also] old-style Kashima Shinto-ryu."  This is a year before most sources say he started to officially train in Aikido.  In 1936, Gozo Shioda and Kisshomaru Ueshiba took the Ukemi in O Sensei's "Budo."

A source of confusion for me is that the second Doshu actually seems to have more sword practice from an early age than some of the Shihan who were deployed in the world under him, but he is associated with Hombu Aikikai pulling away from weapons practice and even discouraging weapons practice in Aikikai associations.  For all the pictures of Kisshomaru Doshu with a weapon and quotes like above, weapons work in Aikikai Hombu played a much more secondary role when compared to other associations.  Kisshomaru Doshu was a student in Iwama and running the Hombu Dojo for four years before Saito Sensei started in 1946, but Morihiro Saito is definitely openly considered the more advanced weapons practitioner.

All of the pictures of weapons work aside between father and son did not prevent a big disparity in the role of weapons in Aikido between Aikikai and other organizations.  Requests to Aikido Journal to hold back on translations of O Sensei transcripts, and requests to students like Shirata Rinjiro to not promote their weapons work; all of these things were done under Kisshomaru Doshu's tenure and requests to the Saito family to suppress their weapons curriculuum continue under the current Doshu.

The early additional years of training Kisshomaru Ueshiba had on other students ring hollow given his inability to enter the army for poor health reasons.  While the Founder apparently became a pacifist, I wonder if his son always was one.  Kisshomaru wrote about nearly being moved to tears seeing the pain his father put himself through in training.  He also referred to himself as a bookworm.  He sounds like a very humble and self-effacing man. 

I can only assume Hombu Dojo was far more subject to scrutiny by the Allies than Iwama, and largely removing the weapons, atemi, and initiating techniques from Aikido made Aikido more palatable to the occupying forces.  The Juken definitely left Aikido practice; so did the Yari.  This also would have served to remove the samurai military class and wartime focus.  Really, Kisshomaru fully exemplified the Omote, the Public Face, and so did Aikikai Hombu under his care.   

This all started with exploring the language of Aikido.  The Second Doshu's book, "Aikido" was published in 1957.  I have an english translation from 1985.  While there were more techniques in this than any other book I had seen before, the names were very different than what I was being taught.  Ryokata-Dori Iriminage is a Sokumen Iriminage.  Nikyo techniques are referred to as Kote Mawashi.  Sankyo, Sankyo Kote Hineri.  Yonkyo, Yonkyo Tekubi Osae.  Gokyo, Gokyo Udenobashi.  

One version of Iriminage is referred to as Kaiten-Iriminage - a technique I was asked for on my Sankyu test that none of my sempai ever really were able to define.  One technique is called Yonkyo Tekubi-Osae Kote Hineri-Ho (the name seems to refer to being both Yonkyo and Sankyo at the same time). There are two versions of Kote Hineri Koshinage: one called Omote and one called Ura.

Kaitenage is referred to as Uchi and Soto, but not Omote and Ura.  Kotegaeshi is referred to as having a Gyaku Kotegaeshi version, but not Omote and Ura.  And, when Omote and Ura are used, the difference is very much usually Irimi and Tenkan. 

In other words, the book has definitions I thought were Yoshinkan only, with language I thought was Shodokan only, and divides the techniques into the same catagories in the same fashion as Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido.  One of my sempai who had been to Hombu Dojo and spoke Japanese was dismissive of my questions, "the book is full of mistakes."  As Kisshomaru Ueshiba was tasked with encouraging a correct understanding of Aikido and it's development (his words) I don't doubt his language changed over time.  The only real strange admission I can point to is in Kisshomaru's 1985 edition of "Aikido" when referring to the international spread of Aikido and the introduction to Hawaii, the text makes no mention of Tohei.  Just about every other teacher of other styles was mentioned.  The book also says O Sensei named his art, "Aikido" which apparently isn't accurate but these things might be the fault of the translators.

Having been told by people who were at Hombu Dojo after O Sensei's death that the school was referring to Irimi and Tenkan then, was the use of Omote and Ura in "Aikido" added for the reprint?  This book was initially published in 1957, long before Tohei's break from Aikikai.  For several techniques, the Omote version is shown in pictures and the other Ura version is just described in the text.  Sumiotoshi, Aiki-otoshi, and Tenchinage mention Omote and Ura, but only Omote is ever demonstrated.  Jujigarami (jujinage) is not defined in terms of multiple variations.

Kisshomaru made many changes to how Aikido was taught, and is credited with the formalized system that many dojos in the world use today. While there is evidence to suggest a wide variety of expression used to be tolerated in individual students under O Sensei, Aikido techniques became codified under Kisshomaru Doshu.  The rift between Koichi Tohei and Kisshomaru Ueshiba was much uglier than I would have expected from two men teaching about harmony and spiritual growth for a living. When Tohei left the Aikikai after O Sensei's death, Kisshomaru used the terms Omote and Ura to differentiate between the two main variations of Aikido techniques. So, Omote and Ura are old terms, but they are also used to communicate "We're not Ki Society, We're not Yoshinkan, We're not Shodokan." Schools like the USAF, CAF, and ASU followed this change in terminology.  We're still not uniform.  

Maybe for a native Japanese speaker, this issue doesn't exist and the terms we use to communicate what we do are completely interchangeable.  For Kisshomaru Ueshiba Doshu, I wish I had met him if only to have a clear sense of who he was for myself.