But does ego have a place in aikido?
In an art where there is no competition, ego is well and truly on display. Some of the most dynamic and beautiful demonstrations of aikido are by sensei's who have enormous egos!
But that does not mean their techniques are by default martial. Which seems to me where aikido gets a bit unstuck.
As an attacker or uke, we ‘give' ourselves so the defender or nage, can learn to polish their technique. We ‘receive' ukemi (break fall or rolling) knowing we are going down!
For a nage (the person doing the technique) to learn, we must attack them with intention. A sloppy attack is useless, whereas as committed attack allows nage to tap into momentum, gravity, leverage, timing, blending, mind and body coordination - even ki!
Because the pact is, we attack expecting we wont be hurt, and the teacher/nage will give us a window of escape - and that gap closes with experience, and then opens up again with age. This way we can still train when we can't roll anymore. Hence age being no barrier to training aikido.
As a demonstration art, which aikido is, it may not hold up to real resistance or counter attack. But that's not why most people train. Aikido is way too sophisticated to stoop to brawling and cage fighting. Why would you train aikido if you want to hurt people?
Training aikido with resistance changes the art from the passive, energetic, even acrobatic art we see today. We can't know now if aikido was ever 'martial', but we do know that it was trained a lot harder (ie. less regard for injuries, more duelling) in most dojos before 1950. Certainly, as you get closer to when aikido evolved from daito ryu, the art appeared more martial, with much more atemi. That was the Japanese way. Watch closely, copy if you can.