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Originally Posted by Unkotare  The training was physical, rough, and demanding. It was not for the faint of heart as it has been sold in the 'west' as some kind of effortless excuse to wear funny pants. The 'without harming' means 'not killing' but certainly not without discomfort. |
Yes, but it also meant without injuring not just killing. Of course as you pointed out Ueshiba had seen combat so to him, a black eye or bruise wasn't much of an injury compared with a broken arm. As a friend of mine pointed out, a shodan in Aikido BTW, allot of aikido is all about pain compliance and several hold stretch tendons and ligaments to cause pain were they could easily dislocate a shoulder or bust an elbow.
An interesting thing about aikido against untrained fighters is that many untrained fighters have no ukemi skills and instead of the effortless throw & roll seen in aikido demonstations they end up on their face and sliding across the pavement. So my injury I always figure Ueshiba meant serious injury such as maiming, crippling, or killing. So on that we agree fully...