Re: aikido kobayashi
In the seventies I have trained a few years with Hirokazu Kobayashi as an example. He came frequently to Holland and Belgium. His style of aikido was very minimalistic. Power started in the middle of his body and with circular or spiral movements he was able to control the attack of the opponent without stopping the opponents movement. The attack (action of the opponent) became a movement of the opponent (without danger for tori) and the energy was skillfully turned into a control action or throwing action by him (Kobayashi).
About the Taiso, without a good instruction, those taiso are just gymnastic exercises. He explained them very well, but I am afraid I didn't understood it very well in that time. I took a lot of notes what he was saying and until recently I started to understand what he was teaching in those taiso.
Without understanding the principle of spiral ( he mentioned it as the principle of meguri) his aikido will become a form of a martial dance with elements usefull for self defense, but far away from Morihei Ueshiba's aikido.
Once I tried to him to resist and before I realised I was on the floor. He used the principle behind the waza of shiho nage.
Just some old memories of this deshi of Morihei Ueshiba.