They also took a film of Ueshiba Morihei performing Daitō-ryū techniques where one can already begin to influence of his more circular aikido style coming into play.
[4] Although already an accomplished practitioner, in interview Okabayashi Shōgen stated that he felt as if he had come to a technical road block in his training through which he could not pass.
Hearing of this Hisa encouraged him rather to go study with Sōkaku's son, the current headmaster of the art, Tokimune Takeda, and gave him a letter of recommendation.
Tokimune called this system Daitō-ryū 'Aiki Budō' as it emphasized a more than just jujutsu and other weapons and that in this day and age it was not merely not an art of fighting but a means of self-improvement or 'martial path'.
Sōkaku, knowing that they had received previous training from Ueshiba, announced that he would dispense with teaching the fundamentals to the Asahi News group and so they never learned them in a systematic way.
)[4] Regardless, Okabayashi had been greatly impressed and influenced by the headmaster's approach to performing Daitō-ryū techniques and felt that they provided much needed missing links in his own training.
[8] Of key important to Okabayashi's approach was a traditional concept of movement common to most koryū styles but not present in the teachings of most contemporary Daitō-ryū teachers.
Okabayashi during his lengthy morning sessions acting uke, or receiver of techniques for Takeda noticed that his movements always seem to conform to this principle while other teachers, even those who had been taught by Tokimune did not always move so.
[8] As there had been a power struggle over succession after the death of the headmaster between Kondo Katsuyuki and some of the Hokkaidō based Daitokan teachers who had been present while he trained at the headquarters,[9][10] and with groups like the Saigo-ha and Nakamura-ha, having questionable links to Daitō-ryū making claims concerning the art, Okabayashi chose to avoid explanations and comparisons to other groups and just continue to teach the techniques he had learned from Hisa and Tokimune under a new name; the Hakuhō-ryū or 'White Phoenix School'.
Like an ancient Phoenix being reborn from the ashes anew, Okabayashi took the opportunity to reveal the koryū movements within the contemporary techniques of Daitō-ryū.