Who is the founder of Aikido?

Answer 1

It would be difficult to identify a single person as the founder of karate. Most of the traditional styles trace their lineage through Sokon "Bushi" Matsumura (c.1798-1890).

Each style has a specific 'founder' that broke away from the original. Some claimed to have something better, some that they are still teaching the original and that everyone else has changed it.

Answer 2

Morihei Ueshiba, a Japanese martial artist who descended from a minor Samurai clan. The reason he developed Aikido, had to do with his experiences growing up. During the Edo and Meiji periods of Japanese history, there was a vicious persecution of the Samurai, it was especially intense during the Meiji period, which saw many Samurai hunted down and killed by the Shinsen gumi, very few swordsmen and Samurai clans, survived their depredations. The styles of swordplay that are still around today in Japan, are the styles able to survive Shinsengumi secret police. To Miyamoto Musashi's credit, the students of his sword style were able to survive Shinsengumi swordsmen, proving conclusively that Musashi did not develop a style that worked just for him.

During the Meiji period, history books were written talking about Samurai depredations, about Samurai hipocrisy, and how no Samurai in fact followed the code of honor. Of course most Japanese know this just isn't true but see, the thing is, corrupt government officials during the Meiji period wanted power for themselves, so they stopped at nothing to defame the Samurai. Even to this day, most Japanese history school books, generally speak negatively about the Samurai. The main reason that in Japanese society, most admirers of the Samurai tend to be big shot executives, is because most Japanese do not study the real history until their college days, it is only then that they learn the truth.

Nevertheless, Samurai, were stripped of land, title, priveleges, and very slowly their influence with the imperial family began to erode, by the 1890's even the Yagyu family, traditionally the bodyguards and sword instructors to the Emperor for the past 450 years or so, lost their position, and to avoid murder, retreated to secluded areas. In fact most Samurai families did precisely that; knowing they were actively being hunted they took whatever money they had left, purchased land in the most secluded areas of Japan, where many Samurai families live to this day. Morihei Ueshiba's great grandfather, was one of the Samurai forced to relocate his family to a secluded mountain.

When Ueshiba was a boy, the Meiji government, now having elliminated the Samurai, and all vestiges of feudalism, began an aggressive campaign of modernization which led to the rapid growth and expansion of Japanese cities, Samurai families who did not move deeply enough into the mountains began seeing their property begin to be encroached by land development and construction. Ever stubborn people, incredibly stubborn as much because of Samurai culture, and their genetics, a lot of Samurai refused to leave. Men and women who descend from Samurai, are all stubborn; very stubborn, their ancestors would not have survived the harsh martial arts training if they weren't, this trait, they passed on to their children. You have incredibly evil men who can't sleep unless they've done someone harm, and you have poor descendants of Samurai with a lot of stubbornness, and nothing to their name except their meager land holdings so as you can imagine, things got ugly. To protect themselves from corrupt government officials many Samurai allied themselves with criminal organizations, Japanese crooks, who admired the Samurai for all the wrong reasons, jumped at the chance of learning Samurai Martial Arts, and even in some cases being LED by them. Hence, it was during this period of desperation, and around the early 1800's actually, that Samurai families began to associate themselves with the Yakuza. In Japan the most powerful crime family, although I don't know what their name is, descends from a Samurai clan, and rumors persist they are closely allied with the Emperor. Japan, is more corrupt than you think; the Imperial family, and that most powerful Yakuza family, get a small percentage of all profits made by all Japanese businesses, they have personal fortunes worth billions.

All the same, more often than not "bound by honor" and all that, most Samurai families fell victim to relocation, were forced to move to the city, and take up menial jobs and basically, become a part of the larger Japanese public. Some remembered who they were, others discarded that identity. Ueshiba belonged to a family that was stubborn, despite taking vicious beatings his father refused to move, angry, Ueshiba the boy vowed he would study martial arts to avenge the frequent beatings his father took. He was able to train, because being a member of a Samurai family meant that other Samurai families were honor bound to train a fellow Samurai. Over a period of 10 years, Ueshiba studied various martial arts, including Sumo, and rapidly gained proficiency in all of them. When he returned home as a grown young man, every time thugs showed up, he gave them vicious beatings. He did indeed defend his now old father, sometimes bare fisted, sometimes using a bokken (wooden sword) or a Jo staff, and with outstanding profficiency that would have made his ancestors proud (by all accounts I've read) however, in the end, in modern society Lawyers are more powerful, than any martial art, so the corrupt government officials, unable to use thugs, had Ueshiba imprisoned.

As you can imagine, Ueshiba sank into a deep depression; all that hard work to try and do the right thing, only to end up in prison. Oh yeah, how did he get out? I think Ueshiba got out of prison, by promising to serve in the army; the Japanese military was looking for proficient martial artists and Ueshiba had a reputation for busting heads, so, the same corrupt government that put him there now wanted his skills so Ueshiba caught a lucky break I guess. Nevertheless Ueshiba was angry, and bitter, especially when he returned home from China. Rumor has it that while there, he was wounded fighting the Russians, but, a Chinese gentleman, who happened to be a respected Tai Chi Chuan master, took him in, took care of his wounds and taught him Tai Chi. The reason Aikido is so similar to Tai Chi, is because it may indeed borrow elements from it.

Whatever the case, Ueshiba vowed never to use martial arts again, and spent the remainder of his 20's, and all of his 30's, meditating in Shinto and Zen temples at every spare moment to ease his anger and pain. Because of his service to the Japanese government, his family was allowed to keep their lands, however the experience, stuck with him. The experience that is of the ethics, or rather lack of ethics, of many legal systems. If someone is trying to forcibly evict you from someplace, when you've done nothing wrong, you have a right to defend yourself, and far as I know Ueshiba never killed anybody. He broke bones, and maimed thugs, but, sorry for sounding brutal but considering their nature its not like they didnt' have it coming to them. Ueshiba was merely protecting what was rightfully his family's. However the law, least of all corrupt government influenced law, did not see things that way.

At the age of 40, while walking in the mountains, a sacred area of Japan, Ueshiba is said to have had a vision, at least that was his claim. He said, that the "gods" granted him a vision of how martial arts should be practiced, and all of a sudden, everything he had learned "had been discarded" in his mind, he combined all his knowledge to create a benign "compassionate" form of martial art and hence Aikido was born. Ueshiba stated, that the modern world is no place for traditional form of martial arts, due to the prevalence of legal corruption all over the world, bad people, will look for any and all excuses to harm you. If intimidation doesn't work, they'll resort to threats, if threats don't work, they'll resort to physical attacks and if that doesn't work, they will cry like sissies to whomever "has their back" and get THEM to try to harm you, evil people have a tendency to escalate everything JUST for their sick, twisted satisfaction in watching you suffer when, what did you do wrong? What did you do to them? If you counter violence with violence, bad people will just use that to portray you in the darkest possible manner, but at the same time common sense says you should not just stand there and let yourself be abused, hence, the only solution, Ueshiba argued, was to "redirect" a hostile attacking force without harming them.

Bad people, always seek to do harm, any way they can, and because more often than not for whatever irresponsible reasons on the part of irresponsible good people, many bad persons hold power over other people's lives, the only reason they place themselves in that position so that they are free to cause harm without any consequences to them. If consequences do occur, the way bad people react, is not with fear and worry, that perhaps they should change, they react with anger, intense anger, outrage that someone is getting in the way of their twisted pleasure, namely the suffering of others. Solomon himself even warns in proverbs "that the wicked man's sleep is taken away, save has he caused harm" meaning evil people are so despicable, they can't sleep unless they have made someone suffer. Borrowing from this line of reasoning, as wisdom is wisdom, true wisdom is universal, Ueshiba argued, the best form of martial art was something that was strictly defensive in nature, that did not harm an opponent. Considering, how some will look for any excuse to cause harm no matter how small, the sad truth is in modern times the traditional styles have been rendered useless. At least styles that are brutal, such as Karate; Karate, analyzed carefully, is viciously cold blooded, and the Okinawans themselves admit it, that is why you use it "only if your life is in danger, and more importantly the life of someone else." If you study Karate, its good to have a "backup" martial art such as Chin Na, Aikido, or Tai Chi, that way you don't accidentally hurt anybody.

Ueshiba created Aikido, to protect martial artists interested in his style from corrupt lawyers, and government officials, and of course from dangerous criminals.

Answer 3

Sensei Jack Moon founded Combat Aikido. It is an eclectic self defense system that combines principles and techniques from Aikido, Karate, Judo, Jujitsu, Boxing, Krav Maga, Ground Fighting and other lesser known martial arts. Traditional Aikido practitioners often refer to Combat Aikido as "ramped up Aikido" because it employs alot more strikes and kicks than the traditional style. The Combat Aikido Association headquarters is located in Rutledge, Georgia.

Answer 4

Ueshiba Morihei founded traditional Aikido.

There are many variations of Aikido developed from Traditional Aikido, such as Yoshinkan Aikido, Shodokan Aikido, Combat Aikido, etc.

Answer 5

Gichin Funakoshi, he also never really accepted an official name for the style. He just called it karate-do.

Answer 6

The contemporary martial art of aikido was created by Morihei Ueshiba.

Answer 7

Jigoro Kano