hi gordo.. the difference between aikido and aikijutsu is essentially in the philosphy and the manifestion of that philosophy in the application of the technique Aikido was derived from aikijutsu, but with the fundamental idea of peace and harmony infused with the techniques, while aikijutsu in and of it's own is purely a set of techniques that were designed for samurai to incapacitate or kill his opponent for example, many of the techniques you see in aikido can potentially be letal (i.e. breaking shoulders, breaking neck etc etc). But it is practiced with sufficient self-control so that even if you faced a real attacker, you will be trained to use the technique just enough to disable the attacker..not to break him/her nihon goshin aikido (which im studying as well) is a "harder" former of aikido.. (hard as in not difficult but including aggressive techniques and ...more along the line of aikijutsu and pre-ww2 aikido such as yoshinkan) kenjutsu -> kendo jujutsu -> judo aikijutsu -> aikido the three japanese martial arts you hear about these days are essentially cleaned up version of old samurai martial techniques hope that answers your question
