When it obtained the corresponding diploma began to work in the Office of Taxes
of Tanabe. between whose functions the appraisal of the values of the earth was
included. In 1902, Morihei resigned of the office of taxes after being united to
a popular movement against the new legislation of fishing. and one went to Tokyo
with the intention to begin again, this time like industralist. During some time
it worked like temporary employee in the commercial district of Nihombashi,
before installing his own article company and scholastic material, the Ueshiba
Warehouse. It is more was during this first stay in Tokyo when Morihei began its
study of the martial arts, learning jujutsu and kenjutsu traditional.
Nevertheless, later, in that same year, it became ill of beriberi and one was
forced to leave Tokyo. Soon after his return to Tanabe one married with Hatsu
Itokawa (been born in 1881), which it knew from his childhood. In 1903, Morihei
got ready in 37º regiment of the Fourth Division in Osaka, where they put the
nickname to him of "King of the soldiers" by his ability with the bayonet and
its honest and working character. The following year, when the Russian-Japanese
War exploded, end was sent to the front as and returned ascended to the degree
of sergeant by its value in the service. During the military life, in its free
short whiles, Morihei continued with its interest in the martial arts, attending
dojo of Masakatsu Nakai in Sakai, where jujutsu learned the techniques of the
school Goto Yagyu-ryu. In 1907 Morihei one received the master's degree of the
army and it returned to Tanabe, where it worked in the familiar farm and it
participated in the policy of the town, becoming the local leader of the
Association of Young people. During this period his father contracted judoka
Kiyoichi Takagi, who was of visit in Tanabe, to teach to Morihei, and turned the
familiar barn dojo. Here he was where Morihei learned the style of judo of the
Kodokan. Also he continued attending the Nakai Dojo and received a certificate
of the Goto school. Morihei remained in Tanabe the three following years, having
to do with numerous local activities. In 1910 (year in which her greater
daughter was born, Matsuko), one was interested in a governmental plan of
colonization of the island of the north, Hokkaido. It decided to form a group of
colonos and requested volunteers between the local Association of Young people.
One became the leader of the Kishu group, composed by fifty and four families
(more than eighty people), and in March of 1912 they left Tanabe in the
direction of Hokkaido. They arrived in May and they settled down in Shirataki,
near the town of Yobetsu, place that had chosen Morihei in a previous trip. This
zone, where still nowadays an uncultivated land exists the town of Shirataki was
then, and the colonizadores had to inclemente fight against the climate and the
poor conditions of the Earth to be able to cultivate. Nevertheless, possibly,
the group of Kishú was able to initiate a series of projects, including the
culture of mint, the young of horses and a milk farm, as well as the
establishment of the beginnings of one trains carpenter. Morihei did everything
what could to ensure the success the adventure, and initiated several projects,
among them the construction of a commercial street in Shirataki, the improvement
of the conditions of lodging, and the foundation of a primary school. It was
during his period in Hokkaido when, in an inn of Engaru, it knew Sokaku Takeda,
the famous teacher of the Daito-ryu. Later training intensively with Takeda and
obtained to the certificate of the Daito-ryu jujutsu. Due to the expansion of
the lumber industry, Shirataki soon began to become a flourishing town. But the
23 of May of 1917, the town destroyed itself completely due to a fire. The
following spring, Morihei, that had been chosen member of the advice of the town,
was dedicated completely to the reconstruction of Shirataki. In Julio of that
same year his first man was born, Takemori. In the middle of November of 1919,
Morihei was scared when receiving the news that his father was seriously ill.
Hokkaido left to go to Tanabe, closing the period of eight years in Shirataki.
In his trip of return, it heard that the leader of the flourishing and new Omoto-kyo
religion, Onisaburo Deguchi, famous by his techniques of meditation chinkon
kishin (calm of the spirit and return to the divine thing), was living in the
near Ayabe. It decided to visit to him, and it remained in Ayabe until the 28 of
December. It requested to Onisaburo that said by its father, to which answered:
"Your father is well as he is". These words made sling impression in Morihei.
Yoroku Ueshiba died the 2 of January of 1920, at the age of 76 years. Its death
was a hard blow for Morihei, that, after a period of emotional instability,
decided to be transferred to Ayabe in search of one more a more spiritual life
under the direction of Onisaburo Deguchi.
T(TAKEDA)...
It obtained a house behind the primary school, within the sacred enclosure of
the Omoto-kyo, and there it lived eight years until his transfer to Tokyo in
1928. During this period it enjoyed the absolute confidence of the sect and took
part in diverse spiritual practices from the same one. Also, animated by
Onisaburo, it turned part of his house dojo of eighteen tatami, and opened the
Ueshiba Academy, where it taught introductorios courses in the martial arts,
mainly to followers of the Omoto-kyo. Unfortunately, the first year of stay of
Morihei in Ayabe was marked by other personal tragedies: it lost to his two
children men, victims of a disease; Takemori died in August with three years of
age, and in September his second son died, Kuniharu, with a year. The following
year of the transfer of Morihei to Ayabe, the instruction that was offered in
the Ueshiba Academy gradually began to increase in extension and depth, and
began to run the voice of which there was an exceptional teacher of martial arts
living in Ayabe. There the number of nonfollowing people of the Omoto-kyo that
scored at the Ueshiba Academy began to grow, and were going to train many
sailors of the near naval base of Maizuru.
Acceptance the challenge of the official and won to him without getting to
fight because it could feel the direction in which the attacks would go before
the wood saber of the official could strike to him. Immediately after this
encounter one went to wash to a well, where it experienced one complete serenity
of body and spirit. One felt suddenly bathed of a golden light that descended
from the sky. It was a unique experience for him, a revelation, and one felt to
appear again, as if their body and its spirit had become from gold. Then it knew
that the universe and he himself formed a same unit, and got to understand, one
by one, the philosophical principles on which the aikido one is based. It was
then when it included/understood that he was more suitable to call to his aiki-budo
work that aiki-bujutsu. (the substitution of the character jutsu by the
character do changes the meaning of martial art of aiki to martial route of aiki.)
When the Aiki-budo became more well-known attracted a number of distinguished
followers, among them to Admiral Isamu Takeshita. In the autumn of 1925, Morihei
was invited to visit the admiral in Tokyo. One lodged in the residence of old
Prime minister Gombei Yamamoto, where it made demonstrations of martial arts
before a number of dignitaries, who were made an impression very. Morihei also
was veintiún days teaching martial arts in the Palace of the Prince of Corona.
In the spring of 1926 it returned to go to Tokyo after the invitation of Admiral
Takeshita. It taught in the Imperial Court and the Ministry of the Imperial
House, as well as to the personnel of the army and navy and to people related to
the world of the finances. In February of 1927, having received a new invitation
of Admiral Takeshita, Morihei felt that it did not have more remedy than to
leave Ayabe by third time. With the blessing of Onisaburo, it decided to be
transferred permanently and to dedicate his energies to settle down solely in
Tokyo like teacher of martial arts. After two years in provisional lodgings,
Morihei was transferred to a house near the Sengaku temple, in Kuruma-cho where
tatami turned two eight rooms of dojo. Between its students they were Isamu
Fujita, Shoyo Matsui, Kaizan Nakazato and the actor of kabuki Kikugoro Ennosuke
I SAW. In 1930 Morihei it obtained a villa in Ushigome, Wakamatsu-cho, and began
the construction of new dojo. While the work was being made had dojo temporary
in Mejirodai, and was there, in October of 1930, where it received the visit of
Jigoro Kano, the founder of the judo and head of the Kodokan. To Kano the
technique of Morihei impressed much to him and it praised saying to him: "This
it is my ideal budo". Later, Kano sent to two of its students, Jiro Takeda and
Minoru Mochikuzi, so that they trained with Morihei. Another memorable visit in
1930 was the one of the Major general Makoto Miura, that was skeptic before the
new budo and visited dojo with the only aim to win to Morihei. Nevertheless, the
founder solved so clearly the doubts of Miura, that this one scored like student
in the act. Later, at the request of this same general Morihei one became
instructor of the Military school Toyama. In April of 1931 the construction of
dojo of aiki-budo of a total of eighty tatami finalized, known like the Kobukan,
in Wakamatsu-cho, the same place where he is nowadays dojo central. Many
students scored, among them Hisao Kamata, Hajime Iwata, Kaoru Funabashi, Tsutomu
Yugawa and Rinjiro Shirata, and during the ten following years the aiki-budo
experienced his first gilded time. at that time the Kobukan was well-known like
"dojo of hell", by the training so extraordinarily intense that it practiced
there. The following years were very active for Morihei, since it not only
taught in the Kobukan, but in many others dojo that had settled down in Tokyo
and Osaka. Dojo main was the Otsuka Dojo, in Koishikawa (sponsored by Seiji Noma,
the president of Kodansha), the Fujimi-cho Dojo, in Idabashi, and the Sonezaki
Dojo, the Suida Dojo and the Chausuyama Dojo, in Osaka. Uchi-deshi (students
which they lived in dojo) remarkable of this time was Shigemi Yonekawa,
Zenzaburo Akazawa, Joy Shioda and Tetsumi Hoshi. Morihei also taught in quarters
of police in the area of Osaka by recommendation of one of its followers, Kenji
Tomita, head of police of the prefecture of Osaka, and later governor of the
Prefecture of Nagano and secretary of the Government. In addition, it was more
and more dedicated to give classes in the Asahi Newspaper, in Osaka, and,
through the Industrial Club of Japan, it had occasion to teach to people of the
financial world. On 1932 the Japanese Society for the Promotion of the Martial
Arts was based, and 1933 Morihei it became his president. In May of 1933 a room
of training was created, call Takeda Dojo, in the Prefecture of Hyogo. Dozens of
students went to live there, putting in practice the ideal of the founder to
unite the martial arts and agriculture. For half-full of the Thirties, Morihei
had become famous in the world of the martial arts. Even more than by his
dominion of the diverse Japanese traditional martial arts, it called the
attention of the public by the nature, that marked a time, of his own original
creation. "the union of the spirit, the mind and the body" in aiki, called
formally aiki-budo. During this Morihei period it practiced intensively kendo in
the Kobukan Dojo, and a series of medical instructors of kendo frequented dojo,
like Kiyoshi Nakakura, that later, 1932, would become son-in-law of Morihei. In
September of 1939, Morihei was invited to Manchuria to attend a public
exhibition of martial arts. There it fought with the ex- fighter of extreme
Tenryu and it immobilized to him with only a finger.
Morihei continued with its visits to Manchuria after the War of the Pacific
exploded, accepting even put of adviser in diverse institutions, among them the
Kenkoku University, with which it was committed of particular way. Its last
visit to Manchuria was in 1942, when it attended the celebration of the tenth
anniversary of the foundation of the state of Manchukuo, sponsored by Japan,
invited by the Association of the Great Martial Arts, and where it made a
demonstration before Emperor Pú Yi. The 30 of April of 1940, the Ministry of
Health and Well-being granted to the Kobukan estatus of Foundation. The first
president of the foundation was Admiral Isamu Takeshita. That same year, the
police academy where Morihei taught adopted the aiki-budo like obligatory subjet.
With the outbreak of the War of the Pacific the students of dojo of Tokyo were
going away one after another one to the front. At this time the present Doshu
Kisshomaru Ueshiba, student of the second education of the University of Waseda,
took the responsibility to maintain dojo next to Kisaburo Ozawa and to other
young students of Aikido.
Also in 1941, the aiki-budo was incorporated to the Butokukai (a governmental
corporation that reunited all the martial arts in a single organization).
Morihei named to Minoru Hirai like representative and director of the Aiki
Section of the Butokukai. It was around this time when one began to use the name
of Aikido for the first time. Like reaction to the provisional nature of the new
measures, carried out at time of emergency, by which the aikido one was reduced
to a section of the Butokukai, and with the purpose of conserving for the future
generations the spirit of the budo that was created Morihei it restored the
organizativas bases of the aikido one in the Prefecture of Ibaragi. Leaving in
charge of dojo in Wakamatsu-cho its Kisshomaru son, Morihei was transferred with
its woman to Iwama, where it lived frugalmente in a farm after finalized the war.
In Iwama, Morihei began the construction of which called ubuya (birth room), or
inner sanctuary del aikido: a complex that included the Aiki Sanctuary outdoors
and dojo. The interior of the Aiki Sanctuary, with exquisite statures, was
finished in 1944; the Dojo Aiki, now known like the Dojo Annexed Ibaragi the
Aiki Sanctuary, was finished in 1945, just before the war finished. In the Aiki
Sanctuary forty and three divinities are enthroned guardians of the aikido one.
The own Morihei made the planes of the enclosures of the sanctuary according to
the principles of kotodama. For example, the main building, the room of oration,
torii, and the layout in himself follows the law of the three universal
principles, that is to say, the triangle, the circle and the square, that
symbolize respiratory exercises in the study of kotodama. After the war the Dojo
Kobukan was used like refuge by than thirty families without home, more being
impossible to continue there with the practice. Therefore the central seat of
the aikido one to Iwama was transferred, where Morihei continued living placidly,
working the Earth and teaching to young people of the environs. After the aim of
the war the martial arts were in declivity by a time, and the future of also the
aikido one it was in danger. When it seemed that the confusion that prevailed
just after finished the war had diminished something, it was decided to again
transfer the central seat of the aikido one to Tokyo. The 9 of February of 1948,
the Ministry of Education grant leave to restore the Aikikai. During that time
dojo main of Tokyo received the new name of Ueshiba Dojo and World-wide Central
Sede of the Aikido. After settling down the Aikikai, it fell on Kisshomaru the
responsibility to consolidate the existing organization and to plan its future
development. Meanwhile, Morihei remained in Iwama, dedicated to the
contemplation and the practice of the martial arts. Of 1950 in ahead, Morihei
again began to travel by Japan responding to invitations to teach, giving
lectures and making demonstrations. When it reached the seventy years of age,
the magnificent technique of Morihei arose every time with more fluidity from
the immensity of its spirit, in contrast to the ferocity and the physical force
characteristic of his first years, putting a greater emphasis in the loving
nature of the aikido one. (the first aikido character of, "ai", that means
harmony, Lee in the same way who the character that means love. In its last
years, Morihei accentuated the these two equivalence of meaning.) In 1954 the
central seat from the aikido one to Tokyo was transferred, and dojo of Tokyo
adopted the official title of Aikikai Foundation: The Hombu Dojo de Aikido. In
September of 1956. the Aikikai celebrated the first public demonstration of
martial arts since the war finished, in the attic of the Takashimaya warehouses,
in Nihombashi, Tokyo. The demonstration lasted five days and caused great
impression in the present foreign dignitaries. Morihei had been against
inflexibly this type of demonstrations, but it included/understood that Japan
had begun a new era and allowed in order to develop the aikido one. When the
aikido one went away establishing in the popular conscience, it quickly
increased the number of students of all parts of the world. In own Japan they
opened new dojo throughout all the country, and the aikido one extended to the
universities, the governmental offices and the companies, announcing one second
gilded time. As Morihei was become greater, it took a less active paper in the
direction from the Aikikai, leaving to Kisshomaru to the position of the
instruction in the Hombu Dojo. Nevertheless, it continued making demonstrations,
and, in January of 1960, the NTV emitted "the Teacher of the Aikido" program
that filmed the techniques of the founder. L4 of May of 1960, the Aikikai
sponsored a demonstration of Aikido in Shinjuku, Tokyo. In that Morihei occasion
the Essence of the Aikido caused to sling impression in the hearing with a
titled demonstration "". Later, that same year, Morihei it received from hands
of Hirohito Emperor, along with Yosaburo One, tenth give of kyudo, the
Shijuhosho Decoration. Only three people of the world of the martial arts had
received this decoration before: the teacher of judo Kyuzo Mifune, and the
teachers of kendo Kinnosuke Ogawa and Seiji Mochida. The 28 of February of 1961
Morihei went to the United States, invited by the Aikikai de Hawaii. The 7 of
August of 1962 a great festival in the Sanctuary Aiki de Iwama took place to
celebrate the sixty anniversary of Morihei like medical instructor of martial
arts, and in 1964 it received a special decoration of Hirohito Emperor in
recognition to his contribution to the martial arts. The 14 of March of 1967 the
ceremony of initiation of the works for the construction of the new Hombu Dojo
in Tokyo was carried out. That same day. Morihei made in Iwama the first
ceremonial plow of the New Year. The 15 of December of that year dojo, a modern
concrete building of three floors was finished new. The 12 of January of 1968 a
commemorative ceremony was carried out to celebrate the completion of the new
Hombu Dojo, and Morihei spoke on the essence of the technique of the aikido one.
Later, during that year, Morihei made the one that would be its last
demonstration of aikido in the Kokaido, in Hibiya, to commemorate the completion
of the new building. The 15 of January of 1969, Morihei attended in the Hombu
Dojo the celebrations of the New Year. Although it seemed to enjoy good health,
its physical training conditions was deteriorated quickly and died the 26 of
April of 1969. The 1 of May, Hirohito Emperor posthumous decorate to him. Their
ashes were buried in the temple of the Ueshiba family in the cemetery of Tanabe,
and tufts kept from the hair of the founder in the sanctuary Aiki de Iwama, in
the cemetery of the Ueshiba family in Ayabe and the Great Kumano Sanctuary. The
14 of June of 1970, Kisshonaru Ueshiba was chosen to happen to its father like
Aiki Doshu by unanimous decision of the Aikikai.