Aikido's Origins
Morihei UeshibaIn 1942, acclaimed martial artist Morihei Ueshiba gave the name aikido to his art. After years of studying traditional martial arts in tandem with an intense spiritual search, he had developed a reputation for invincibility and was in high demand as a teacher.
Ueshiba had a unique vision for martial arts as a means of bringing harmony to the individual and society. Not a method of war, but a path to peace.Needless to say, in 1940s Japan this was an unconventional idea and students were drawn to him more by his personal power and prowess than his philosophy.
That same year Ueshiba left his official positions in Tokyo and secluded himself in the rural village of Iwama where he devoted himself to working the land, training and spiritual practice. He called Iwama the birth place of aikido and made it his home for the rest of his life.
In 1946 a local youth called Morihiro Saito began training with Ueshiba. With Japan busy rebuilding itself, there were few other students for several years and the two developed a close relationship both in training and in the crop gardens around the dojo. In fact, much of the practice, especially with weapons, was done in the open fields.
By the 1950s Ueshiba was travelling more, aikido began to spread throughout Japan and abroad, and Saito was one of Ueshiba’s senior instructors/students. Ueshiba was very spontaneous in his demonstration of aikido and his explanations were often esoteric. Saito was a talented and pragmatic teacher who did much to systematise the presentation of his teacher’s art, especially the riai (unity of principles) between sword, staff and empty handed techniques.
Morihiro SaitoWhen Ueshiba died in 1969, Saito became chief instructor of the Iwama Dojo as well as care-taker of the Aiki Shrine, a mecca for all aikido practitioners. From the early 1970s to his death in 2002 Saito became one of the most widely travelled and best known teachers of aikido and students from all round the world have studied in Iwama.
You can read more about the relationship between Ueshiba and Saito here and watch a two part documentary about aikido in Iwama here and here.