History, Attribution & Citations
Why we‘re (mostly) running in circles.
Correction: The article initially stated that Mr. Wollos had been a student of both Sagawa sensei and Prof. Kimura. However, according to his profile on his dojo’s website, he was only allowed the Sagawa dojo after Sagawa sensei passed away. His prior practice of Daito-ryu was with other lineages and groups.
Legends tell us that Daito-ryu has a long history, spanning over more than a millennium. However, available historical records we can tie to the tradition do not span much more than about 150 years, with the vast majority of those records being from the last 100 years or so. This is largely due to the publicization and aggressive expansion of the tradition followed by the rapid rise in popularity of what would become Aikido.
The stories are numerous, and so are the rumors, inaccuracies, and falsehoods. And unfortunately, not all the records we have are trustworthy.
Today, I’d like to take a moment to share two quick research post-mortems with you, to illustrate what Daito-ryu presently has to deal with.
Background
A few months ago, I received a series of picture documents from a friend, claiming they are translations of the Daitokan Newsletters (simply titled Daito-ryu Aikibudo in Japanese). The documents, while not findable on the Open Web, have been going around Facebook for quite some time now; each page was individually posted to the Japanese Martial Images group by its administrator, but words of it being posted to other groups were going around as well.
My friend wasn’t the only one interested in the documents: during the following months, I periodically received similar requests from other friends and acquaintances, in regards to the same documents. Did I ever see those documents? Are they genuine?
Validation
Luckily enough, I have a copy of the original run (which I intend to cover gradually on this blog) of the newsletters. Thinking it would be relatively quick to verify whether the translation was what it purported to be, I pulled them out of archives and got to work.
Alas, nothing seemed to match at first glance. I must admit I didn’t look too hard at the time, but the gist of the initial analysis was as follow:
- The format doesn’t match the content of the newsletters (multiple articles, longer texts, and so on);
- Articles from the source material are missing. There are, for instance, articles regarding branch dojos in the original, and none can be found here;
- The document provides no specific sources, origins, or other metadata (unknown translator, missing publication dates, etc.);
- The letters SDH part of the title on top of each page didn’t seem to be an abbreviation for anything in the newsletters;
My best estimate at the time was that the documents were either translation of something unknown to me or pure fabrications. As I was busy with other things and didn’t have much else to go on, I didn’t pursue the matter, saved a copy of the documents in archives, and put them out of my mind.
Progress
That is, until about a week ago.
An acquaintance contacted me with some questions regarding the whereabouts of a historical location in Shiga prefecture said to be connected to Minamoto-no-Yoshimitsu— the purported forefather of the tradition. He cited as a reference a mention of the location in Aiki News #79, an issue that happened to be dedicated to Daito-ryu.
Unfortunately for my acquaintance, I am not familiar with the location being referenced, but since I have a digital copy of the Aiki News issue being cited, I pulled it out and started to read through the various articles in the hope to perhaps learn more on the topic.
This is when I stumbled upon this particular article. The preface text immediately brought back the memory of the picture collection that I had looked at months before.
The following article is reprinted with the kind permission of Tokimune Takeda Sensei, Headmaster of Daito-ryu Aiki Budo and son of Takeda Sokaku Sensei.
I fetched back the documents I had received a few months ago to compare the content.
There, a match. So the content from the series of images is originally from Aiki News.
- The number 06 seemed to match the serialization number used in the Aiki News edition, but a closer comparison showed this was coincidental;
- The title in the Aiki News article clearly states this is a biography and not a translation of the newsletters themselves;
- The original Japanese text is included (which was standard practice for Aiki News at the time);
One key part the translation omits is the specific reference to the original content. It states that:
- The content of this article was published in the Daito-ryu Aikibudo Newsletters by Tokimune sensei, in issue #8 and #9 (with publication dates);
- This series started in issue #74 of Aiki News;
- The content has been edited before reprint (編集転載したものです), presumably to better fit the magazine’s format;
Just as stated in the original Japanese text, we can find the original content; it is part of a series bearing the same Japanese title as in the Aiki News reprint; however, the Aiki News edition starts mid-way in the text.
To summarize what we have learned at this point: the series of images posted on Facebook is content from Aiki News, based on original content from the Daito-ryu Aikibudo Newsletters.
Since I already had pulled out all the files pertaining to this matter from various archives, I figured I would try to find where the first page of the collection of images I had received started in the serialized story published in the Daitokan Newsletters.
And this is where the collection of images starts. — essentially, right in the middle of the series, somewhere in the middle of an issue.
The actual start of the series was in issue #4 to find the beginning of the actual series. It‘s also where the reprint in Aiki News starts in issue #74.
Therefore, the numbers following the letters SDH at the top of each page are simple page numbers unrelated to the original source material or the reprint in Aiki News. We now also know that the series of documents in question does not follow the original publication ordering.
Investigation
But I still couldn’t figure out what the letters SDH might mean. And I was also getting very curious about the specific origin of this partial translation. Who was it that reused the content from Aiki News? Where were the documents initially found?
A Facebook search seemed to indicate the origin was the Japanese Martial Images group. I reached out to its administrator, M. Scott Harrington since he had originally posted the documents himself, one page at a time. I thought he might be able to provide some information as to how he had acquired them.
During our exchange over Facebook chat, he stated that the documents in question originated from a BBS predating the World Wide Web. For the less technically inclined, BBS (or Bulletin Board Systems) were servers accessible either through direct access dial-in or special networks (don't ask how I know).
Unfortunately, Mr. Harrington could not remember more about the provenance of the documents (the location or nature of the BBS, who might have been its administrator, and so on). He did, however, later confirmed that the SDH letters found on his page are his initials.
Exasperation
This kind of content — the series being passed around on Facebook — is problematic for a number of reasons.
First, the content lacks proper sources. In fact, it steals translation work from a source and doesn’t even care to reference the publication it comes from.
Second, it doesn’t include the original Japanese content, despite it being available. This matters a lot when it comes down to Japanese. Translations are rarely one-to-one (as we can see here, some content was missing from it), and subtle details sometimes do not transpire through the English translation. Given that the original content (albeit possibly modified) was literally next to the translation in this case, and that some important information was omitted from the translation, there were no excuses for not including the content.
Third, the individual(s) who appropriated the content — whomever it may ultimately be — tampered with it by arbitrarily reordering it. Partial, incomplete, or altered content is always much harder to verify, but also affect how it is interpreted.
And last, but not least: the little metadata provided in the images — the title on top of each document — is wrong. These are not translations of the Daitokan Newsletters, but of a modified reprint of a series of articles that were published through some issues of the Daito-ryu Aikibudo Newsletter, and then translated for and reprinted in Aiki News.
As a researcher — amateur as yours truly may be — this type of content is infuriating.
- Distributing stolen content is wrong. M. Stanley Pranin and the Aiki News/Aikido Journal team did amazing, grueling work at the time, including translation, research, and editorial work. They didn’t enrich themselves much doing so;
- The lack of attribution is adding insult to injury. Writing is hard. Publishing is hard. Translation work is hard. Not even bothering to credit the original publication, the reprint, or the translator(s) is deeply disrespectful;
- Finally, it obscures sources, thus making the content questionable. Documents like that are harder to verify, and near indistinguishable from fabrications and forgeries (unless one gets lucky);
In short, it pays no respect to past researchers and translators and generates more, useless work for future ones.
Trust issues
Why would people who claim to care about Daito-ryu do this? Why are they sharing poor quality content, thus potentially adding more noise?
The proliferation of such documents is one of the things that makes Daito-ryu so damn hard to research or trust. Content verification is too time-consuming, and regularly produces more wastes than rewards.
It creates an environment where unsourced, untrustworthy content gets put on an even keel with well-sourced, well-researched, painstakingly crafted content.
One might be tempted to blame social networks and the movement towards open-source information and research crowdsourcing. After all, aren’t we taught not to believe everything we read online?
All the content that’s fit to print
Unfortunately, things are not so simple. Here’s one additional example to further illustrate my point.
合気は保科近悳（会津藩家老の西郷頼母）から教わったと明言しているのです。これは、私が「透明な力」を書く時に、佐川先生から直接詳しく話を聞いたのですが、佐川先生ご自身も「武田大先生の記録」を書き遺されていました。その最初の頁に書いてありますので、それを左の写真で紹介しておきます。 — 合気修得への道 (Discovering Aiki), by Prof. Kimura Tatsuo, page 150
Translation:
He clearly states that [Sokaku sensei] learned Aiki from Hoshina Chikanori (Saigo Tanomo, a retainer of the Aizu domain). I heard this directly from Sagawa Sensei in detail when I was writing “Transparent Power”. Sensei himself wrote down the “Records of Takeda Dai-sensei”. It is written on the first page of the book, and I would like to introduce it with the picture on the left.
The picture is on the next page. I must admit having a hard time reading the notes, but as far as I can tell, while they recount some of the stories previously mentioned in the chapter as well as an encounter with Hoshina Chikanori at Toshogu shrine, it doesn’t seem to explicitly state that he was the one who has taught aiki to Sokaku sensei. One is left to assume this is mentioned later in the notes.
The text continues.
昭和三十五年五月一日発行の大東流合気武道第五号に、武田時宗氏が、「日光東照宮にて」と題する文章で武田惣角先生と保科近悳氏の関係を次のように述べています。
Translation:
In issue #5 of the Daito-ryu Aikibudo Newsletter published on May 1st of Showa 35 (1960) M. Tokimune Takeda wrote the following about the relationship between Takeda Sokaku sensei and M. Hoshina Chikanori in a chapter entitled “At Nikko Toshogu Shrine”.
- Issue #5 was published in 1975. In fact, the stated date precedes the first issue of the entire Newsletter by 10 years!;
- There are no references to Hoshina Chikanori or the Toshogu in issue #5 of the Daito-ryu Aikibudo Newsletters;
This is so far the closest entry I could find, and there doesn’t appear to be a match.
To be clear, I’m not trying to comment on the veracity or accuracy of the information being conveyed here (for what it’s worth, Prof. Kimura states in the following paragraphs that Sagawa sensei himself expressed doubts as to whether Hoshina Chikanori had really taught anything about aiki to Sokaku sensei). What I am criticizing is verifiability and how dodgy references and sources can be found even in books written by well-known individuals, and how it complicates efforts by future researchers.
Let’s pause for a moment now. Objectively, if you were in my place, how credible would you consider the statements as they stand? Would you invest further research time to try to validate them? Or discard them as invalidly referenced?
Well, I decided I wanted to learn more, and reaching out to the author for comments seemed reasonable enough. I couldn’t find the proper official channel to contact Prof. Kimura, so I sent an inquiry to Mr. Paul Wollos, a known student of Prof. Kimura.
Through Mr. Wollos, Prof. Kimura kindly sent a copy of the referenced document for verification purposes.
The image above is only a portion of the one that was sent. The full image contained additional articles, and while I was obviously grateful for it, some key information was missing:
- The issue and page number(s) are not on the image;
- While many of the other articles refer to the Daitokan, there’s no explicit mention that the document was issued by the Daitokan itself (or by Tokimune sensei’s organization specifically);
- Information regarding how the document was initially acquired;
Unfortunately, Prof. Kimura stated in his reply to Mr. Wollos that he did not wish to receive further messages.
Anyway I do not want to receive the e-mail form foreign Daitoryu people.
(Of course you [Mr. Wollos] are the exception)
Nevertheless, I sent my follow-up questions for Prof. Kimura to Mr. Wollos, with a note explaining that while being a foreigner, I have been living in Japan for over a decade, and would be happy to both continue future communications in Japanese and meet in person should that be preferable.
I have not received any response yet.
Is sharing really caring?
This is why it’s so hard to have nice things like genuinely good, in-depth historical essays and analyses worthy of trust. In too many cases, the sources are lacking, the references incorrect or incomplete, and the material itself tampered with, leaving future generations with the need to redo much of the research work all over again.
And even when the citations are genuine, it can often be difficult and time-consuming to fully verify.
Given that every generation sees material disappear in the aether of history, there’s a very real cost to that beyond time wasted.
That’s not to say that there are no writers and researchers worth reading. There are a few, but they are often drowned in noise and ignored. When people do pay attention to what they’re doing, their work gets appropriated, without adequate reference or citation.
This is counter-productive to the preservation of our tradition. Nobody benefits from this.
Sharing is not caring. Caring is caring.
If you wish to share content or do research, great! By all means. It’s needed. But at least show a level of thoroughness and discipline that one would reasonably expect from a budoka. Be critical. Provide sources and references. Proofread your submissions. Avoid posting content you wouldn’t personally vouch for (or at least be able to determine its origin). And make it clear when you are ignorant of the above. There’s no shame in that.
And we’d all benefit from it.
