2. The early history of the IAF

Let us briefly summarize the development of the IAF. The spread of
Aikido outside Japan is generally considered to have started with a trip by O Sensei
to Hawaii. Of course, this wasn’t the first time that Aikido was practiced
outside of Japan, or why else would he have gone there? But this visit does
seem to have expedited the development of international structures and the IAF.
At the request of Doshu Kisshomaru Ueshiba the IAF was formed and joined GAISF.
Refer for the publications of Peter Goldsbury for details.

The IAF was established by organizations that knew the world or sport:
Budo- and Judo-organizations across Europe were important and strong founding
members. Yet within these organizations Aikido could still be seen as pyramids:
a Japanese instructor at the top, a few well-informed seniors below that, and a
larger number of students at the bottom. The level of development was
different. In countries where the Japanese teachers had connected to existing
organizations (Sweden, Spain, France, Britain for example) this led to other
dynamics than in countries where the instructors started to build by themselves
(for example, in the USA).

Because of these pioneer organizations, history was directly attached to
individuals. People like Yamaguchi Sensei, Chiba Sensei, Tamura Sensei or Guy
Bonnefond, Giorgio Veneri and Peter Bacas were known to everybody who was
involved in the international organization of Aikido. The essays Peter
Goldsbury has written about that time are informative of what happened, and who
were involved.

This pyramid structure isolated
students from background information. Students would know little or
nothing about Hombu, international organizations or the people involved in
organizing Aikido.

During this time, it became quite clear that the Japanese instructors
held a claim on what Aikido was and how it should be disseminated. They would
allow the national organizations and the IAF to do things as long as it suited
their opions, but anything outside of that would run into strong opposition.
Goldsbury’s essays articulate a hypothesis that this attitude or opposition
could be rooted in Japanese culture. Goldsbury
commented: “This ‘hypothesis’ is actually a statement made by Kisshomaru
Ueshiba in his book Aikido Ichiro. He
wanted to spread aikido – and also Japanese culture, to the victor countries in
World War II”.

But without argument I agree that there have been many occasions where
initiatives were simply stopped, and indeed the impression would be ‘O Sensei
is the founder of Aikido, Doshu is the leader of the way, we represent the
Aikikai: therefore if we disagree, it should not happen’. Whether this position
is rooted in Japanese culture or not, is not something I can comment on, but
the repetition of topics becoming issues and then ending this way does suggest
something structural. In the next chapter I will provide some examples of the
consequences of this attitude.