last update 17-november-2004
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Morihei Ueshiba (O-Sensei)
The founder of aikido
Morihei Ueshiba was born on December 14, 1883 as the first of four children of Yoroku Ueshiba, a respected farmer and member of the village council in the fishermen and farmers' village of Tanabe, Wakayama prefecture. He lived there with his wife Yuki Itokawa. Although Morihei Ueshiba was of poor health, he had the will to persevere. To improve Ueshiba's physical strength, his father made sure that his son would go swimming and practice sumo wrestling after his lessons in Buddhism at the local temple.

In 1901 Ueshiba went to Tokyo at the age of eighteen to open up a stationary shop. Here he also took an interest in budo: he started practising Jiu Jitsu at the Kito ryu dojo where Kano, the founder of judo, had also been a student. He also practised ken-jutsu (swordfighting) at the Shinkage ryu dojo. When Ueshiba became ill he went back to Tanabe to recover. Here he married Hatsu Itokawa. In 1903 he was drafted for military service in the war between Japan and Russia. After his return his father built a dojo in a barn and hired a famous Jiu Jitsu and Judo teacher, Takaki Kiyoichi. Later on Morihei Ueshiba met Sokaku Takeda in Hokkaido. Takeda was a grandmaster of Daito-ryu Aiki Jutsu and a strict, even violent, teacher. Ueshiba became a devoted student of Takeda and received the menkyu-kaiden (proof of mastery). Takeda's style would form the basis of today's Aikido.

Ueshiba left Hokkaido in 1919 and a year later he met Onisaburo Deguchi in Ayabe. Onisaburo was the leader of the religious Omota-Ky sect that focussed on pacifism and advocated resistance without violence and universal disarmament. Onisaburo's teachings had a great influence on Ueshiba's spiritual vision of aikido. Ueshiba's style became more spiritual after 1925. He advocated the idea of ai (harmony) and budo as a way to achieve harmony. He emphasised that every movement stems from a unity of ki (energy), body and mind. In 1927 Morihei Ueshiba founded his own dojo, the Kobudan, in Tokyo (where the Hombu dojo, headquarters of the Aikikai Foundation, is located today). In 1930 Jigoro Kano witnessed one of Ueshiba's aikido demonstrations. He was so impressed that he sent a couple of his most talented students (including Minoru Mochizuki) to practise and study Ueshiba's aikibudo (as aikido was called at that time).

In 1942 Ueshiba retreated to the countryside in the village of Iwama. Here his perfected his techniques and the spiritual philosophy of Aikido (the way of harmonising with the energy). The number of aikido students increased rapidly after the Second World War and Ueshiba was now known as 'O-Sensei', the great teacher. He died of liver cancer on April 26, 1969. His last message to his students was: 'Aikido is for the entire world. Do not train for egotistical reasons but for all people in the world.'

Written and translated by Dennis de Booij.