You appear to already believe so why ask?
I believe he is legit, what I ask is about the no touching stuff if it is from aikido.
Just out of curiosity, what is your source for this information? Have you talked to the soldiers who trained with him or is the story coming from the instructor himself?
He had spent time several months studying our style (which is still touching stuff) for his paper for promoting to dan-5 aikido.
That is why I don't ask about the touching stuff because he had perform it before, it just the "new" no touching stuff that he hadn't shown back then.
Even your clothesline example is an artifact of training rather than something which would happen in real life. An uke who has received the technique enough times will know he is about to get clotheslined and may (consciously or not) start to throw himself to avoid the impact. In a real situation the attacker would either walk into the clothes line (if it was properly applied and they didn't see it coming) or else counter it.
Hmmm, that's a new perspective, seen it actually done with shout, but it hit the nail just now...
Being respected, knowledgeable, and an expert in any art dose not mean that in time yo change and start promoting something else that may not be as legit.
A prim example of this is/was Dillman. The man was damn good at what he did and what he taught way back in the early 70's but he changed and started promoting his no touch years later.
I hope, this one has logic explanation on it, because, "truly" the no-touching stuff many here still believes it, it just it not all powerful, in 80's it was booming, many were sold, no need to sweat.
but in the 90's when they saw that the no touching stuff is actually like physical training, the more you train the better you are, the longer you no training it will decreased, and it has some rituals that doesn't makes sense.
and if your opponent is stronger physically or not mad at you, it won't affect them (big), and "strangely" it works like voodoo, it only works if your target believe it works, the "physical" martial art start growing back.
so more or less, the statement of "it only works on the student" somehow close.
I never faced with one, so I cannot say yes or not, but it really hard to go too straight challenged it already established "believed" value, especially the person left and right from you believe in it...
What do you guys do about this? Do you just suck it up and try not to comment at all or do you not look at the comments or what? I find it really aggravating...
sometimes if one lives near, we just respectfully ask them come to the dojo, and welcome them to proof their "assessment". This only to the nagging one, but mostly just ignore them...
Thank you all again for the responses...