- Several years ago I had the opportunity to interview Saito Sensei at a seminar.
SAITO: "They're all very important, but the one that makes people really get good is Shihonage, because you have the way of movement and the way of using weapons in Shihonage. O Sensei used to always say you can never do enough shihonage."
"Kokyho. And the hips."
"You can't really see it. You can't really show it."
"They forget the feeling of the sword when they do it. You need to always have the feeling of the sword when you do it. You have to have it from the beginning to the end."
"I would like to fix in people's minds that the weapons (ken-do) and the taijitsu (hand-to-hand) come together, and you need both of them for Aikido. It will be a really big mistake if you don't place importance in both of those."