History Of Aikido

Aikido was founded by a man named Morihei Ueshiba, who was highly skilled in a large number of traditional martial arts. Aikido came to incorporate both armed and empty handed techniques. Mr. Ueshiba developed his art to be a means of developing the character of the practitioner as well as a means of self defence.

Ultimately all the techniques, when performed by a skilled person are designed to protect the person without causing injury to the attacker, for this reason alone it is often called the “true” or “pure” martial art.

Aikido is a pathway to self enlightenment and during a period in Japanese history, the (Sengoku Period 1482-1558-Sengoku meaning "warring countries") and WW2, the martial arts were abused and taught as a means of surving the local lords by using the martial arts as a fighting tool to serve their own private interests and to satisfy their greed and wealth, even Mr. Ueshiba himself had taught the martial arts in WW2 for killing and so wanted to created aikido after two enlightenment’s he had, after seeing true war.

One of his students Mr. Kenji Tomiki added elements of his judo knowledge to develop an art that combined the traditional values of aikido with a sporting element thus would enable younger students to compete. The Aikido practiced at Newbury is that of Mr. Tomiki Sensei.