Morihei Ueshiba, founder of Aikido

Just remembered I didn’t post about the last Heretics podcast we did. This one was about the history of Aikido. I thought it would be quite a light-hearted one, but as Damon explains, it turns out the history of Aikido, and its parent art Daito Ryo, is largely unknown to the average martial artists (i.e. me) and also pretty dark and nasty. Very nasty.

War crimes, extreme nationalism, invasion, torture, ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and so on.

So, if you’d like to have your illusions about “the way of harmonious spirit” shattered, then listen on, otherwise, as they say, ignorance is bliss.