The Creation of Aikido

Video Transcript

"Aikido is a modern marshal art founded by Morihei Ueshiba, he's right here. He was born in 1883 in Tanabe, which is in Wakayama Prefecture, it's on the coast in Southern Japan. He studied many forms of martial arts, including, sumo, jujitsu, spear, sword. The most famous of these styles were daito-ryu jujitsu and yagu-ryu sword work. Osensei felt the need to modify because of both his personal experiences in Manchukuo, or Manchuria through the war there, as well as seeing his masters, Takeda Sokaku, the head of daito-ryu at the time. They found that his instructor had nightmares and dreams that were quite horrific, and actually he was up all the time, up all night, always thinking that somebody was going to attack, or try to kill him. Osensei found that that was a- not a way to live, and he wanted to create a living martial art, rather than an art that focused on killing or violence, or those kind of things. So again, he wanted to emphasize an art of peace, and in fact an art of love and harmony"