When one considers it is really only a short, round stick of wood, it is even more intriguing to ponder what an elemental gap the hardwood jo has filled in the history and evolution of the martial disciplines of Japan…
~ Dave Lowry, The Evolution of Classical Jojutsu
There are also some apropos comments on weapons by Kanai Sensei in Aikido News issue 36:
[O-Sensei] would throw the uchideshi, (live-in disciples), with very little in the way of explanation and we would grasp what we could of the feeling of the technique while we were flying through the air…
~ Aikido Journal, Interview with Mitsunari Kanai Sensei
ɕ