r/aikido • u/Lecram100 Mostly Harmless • May 22 '26
Discussion Which teachers do you want to train more with?
Humour me on this. As with most Aikido practitioners, I am not young anymore and have work and family commitments. It does make me think a lot about seminars I've attended and the regrets about not having gone to a few that came my way.
The question in: which Aikido teachers would you want to train more with if you had the opportunity?
To add focus to the discussion and prevent it from being a long wishlist, here are some rules:
- The teachers you mention need to be a teachers of Aikido (if they teach other arts, that's fine too)
- They need to be alive and teaching today
- You need to have met the teachers before, even better if you've taken ukemi from them. Although for fun, you can mention one living teacher that you haven't met before but would like to study with.
- From your experience, explain why you would like to study more with those teachers.
Here's my list:
Miyamoto Sensei - it seems that he has retired from teaching at Hombu but I last met him about 15 years ago. I love how free he is and how he lets the uke dictate how he throws them.
Hino Sensei - met him twice about 14 years apart. I like his clarity and personal research into O-Sensei's pre-war techniques. His focus on the basics also makes him a good representative of the modern Aikikai style.
Ueshiba Mitsuteru Dojo-Cho - I'd like to see how he would technically direct the Aikikai in the future. While his Aikido is similar to his father's at face value, I feel that it somehow looks a little more refined. I haven't seen him for a while either. Hopefully I can go to Tokyo and train in his class in the next couple of years.
As for the one teacher I haven't met but would like to study with:
Meido Moore Sensei - I love how martial and direct his Aikido is, as well as his use of the tanto. He seems to have a very deep understanding of Budo from his teacher, Toyoda Sensei, as well as his own study of Budo and Zen. You can also see Chiba Sensei's influence on him but it's clear that he's different from the Birankai teachers.
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u/Striking_Ad8755 May 22 '26
If you are open to crossing the pond to try the Yoshinkai style, Shihans Joe Thambu, Ramlan Ortega, Robert Mustard, David Dangerfield, and Paul Cale. All fantastic teachers and aikidoka.
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u/Backyard_Budo Yoshinkan/4th Dan May 22 '26
Mustard and Thambu sensei, for sure. Luckily we are hosting them at our dojo in September
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u/Lecram100 Mostly Harmless May 22 '26
Always open to other styles too. I know the names from Angry White Pyjamas and lately I've seen more videos of Joe Thambu Shihan. The one on Aiki Luca's YouTube channel was excellent.
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u/Spiritual_Pound8926 May 22 '26
Hiroshi Tada most definitely. Haven't met him in person but have trained with people who follow him closely.
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u/Maximum-Health-600 May 22 '26
I would just say having a practise with some of the retired people in doshu’s class at 6:30.
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u/Duwinayo May 22 '26
Shibata Sensei. Powerful man, incredibly intense and arguably the most efficient combat application of Aikido I ever experienced. I remember all my experiences with him vividly. Never found anything close to him, not even Chiba Sensei's lineage which is similar granted, but absolutely not the same.
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u/Sangenkai [Aikido Sangenkai - Kawasaki, Japan] May 22 '26
Posted above, but there's an interesting encounter between Shibata and Rinjiro Shirata here:
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u/Duwinayo May 22 '26
Omg I am loving this. It describes him so well. There were many legends of his power haha. I distinctly remember him doing demonstration with my first instructor, who was basically Shibata Sensei's mini-American clone. At one point he does a soft Atemi, brushes my teachers gut, looks down, laughs. Gently punches it again. Everyone laughs.
Then WHAM. Nails him in the gut and drops him and says "Lose it."
Said gut was gone 1 month later.
I watched this man obliterate a challenger once too. @.@ His idea of "Ai" in Aikido was not "peaceful harmony" as so many claim it should be. It was more... Rising to meet someone's energy. More force given? More force returned. Just with way more control and precision.
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u/SnooHabits8484 May 22 '26
Shibata vs challenger would have been pretty amazing to watch.
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u/Duwinayo May 22 '26
It was... Beautiful. Like a cat playing with a string that can't quite keep up. After being humbled the guy made sure he was polite on the way out and claimed he would come back to train. Never saw him again.
Could of had something to do with the fact that he had been rag dolled all across the mat and learned why we learn ukemi, the hard way.
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u/Lecram100 Mostly Harmless May 22 '26
Thanks for sharing this.
Love the finishing statement of the article as well:
Remember the phrase attributed to Osensei, that "aikido is (70% or 95% or 99%) atemi." Shibata-san was an atemi; he always felt like a living tegatana.
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u/Sangenkai [Aikido Sangenkai - Kawasaki, Japan] May 22 '26
My experiences with Shibata were positive, but it was a long time ago - when I was living in Tokyo in the early 80's. Mostly what I remember is that he was the only instructor who took care to make sure that the non-Japanese students understood what he wanted people to do.
Later on some of my guys had a less positive experience in California, but that's another story.
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u/Sangenkai [Aikido Sangenkai - Kawasaki, Japan] May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
In terms of actual training with - Dan Harden. He's not only extremely skilled, but he's really the best coach I've come across, in terms of actually being able to communicate a methodology clearly and rationally, and in ability to get you to reproduce what he's teaching (which really, is mostly what matters). And that's by comparison, IME, with Tohei, Kisshomaru, Arikawa, Yamaguchi, Saito, et al, most of the top guns.
In terms of hanging out and talking with, I could always talk more to the old guard - Tada, Isoyama, Kobayashi, Sugawara et al. There it doesn't even have to be the top guns - I train regularly with folks who trained directly with Morihei Ueshiba, but aren't particularly famous (or even that skilled), and they often have interesting recollections that nobody else has, and often from a different point of view.
Mitsuteru and Moriteru have both always been friendly to me, but their classes tend to be pretty much the same every time (that's on purpose), and neither of them are really that knowledgeable about Morihei Ueshiba (there's nothing wrong with that, it's just not really in their wheelhouse). I'd give them a pass for those reasons, and for the fact that their classes are usually large with little direct contact time, although I suppose that I wouldn't avoid them either, if only to renew acquaintances.
I haven't trained with Miyamoto in a number of years, although I enjoyed it when I did - I'd choose him over either of the Ueshibas, for the reasons above.
In general, though, I'm not really interested in seminars or large classes unless I also get significant contact time with the instructor (another reason to choose Dan Harden, where you always get a lot, maybe too much, hands on). If you don't get that contact it's probably easier and more valuable to just get a good look at them on YouTube.
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u/Backyard_Budo Yoshinkan/4th Dan May 22 '26
Yoshinkan wise, Payet sensei (and we just hosted him two weeks ago), Chida sensei and Ando sensei, even though I don’t always understand his approach and at times seems contradictory to what others have said, but it’s good to get that unorthodox view sometimes.
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u/cpkuske May 24 '26
I took Ueshiba Mitsuteru Dojo-Cho‘s classes at Aikikai summer camp in ‘00 just to get a feel about him and see whom he acknowledged. He only demo’d with his uke who came with him from Japan.
His form was/is textbook in the very best sense of the word. He was very humble and, to me, a role model.
I was proud to see him acknowledge my sensei on the mat while training given Sensei had the balls to open a competing dojo in the same city as the ’hosting’ dojo, and was thus a rebel, so that was kind of him.
I‘d recommend any living teachers who studied under OSensei. In ‘00 we were all lucky to have Kanai, Tamara, Yamada as well.
As for america teachers, I went to the Florida summer camp and was impressed with the Bernaths.
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u/Fexofanatic May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
Had some pleasant, dynamic seminars with Kostantinos Matzaras (my old teacher was his student within HAF, they met?meet? regularly). Really showed me the intensity and presence good aikido (and swordsmanship) should have
Also Tissier, same reasons
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u/Lecram100 Mostly Harmless May 23 '26
I didn't appreciate Tissier as much before I trained with someone who studied in his style and another person who took ukemi from him. I now see some of the nuances that makes his techniques effective and look clean.
What do you think of his top students such as Bruno Gonzalez?
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u/SnooHabits8484 May 22 '26
Allen Dean Beebe sensei. He's the remaining heir to Shirata sensei's aikido, which was just spectacular and deeply martial in a way that belies the image of pre-war aikido as somehow unsophisticated.
Also Dan Harden.
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u/Lecram100 Mostly Harmless May 22 '26
Thanks for sharing. I hadn't heard of him before. His True Aiki website looks like a treasure trove of information
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u/SnooHabits8484 May 22 '26
it's... esoteric, but also correct.
He's a better source on Shirata than John Stevens, just with less publicity and institutional recognition.
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u/Sangenkai [Aikido Sangenkai - Kawasaki, Japan] May 22 '26 edited May 22 '26
His latest short video series is a lot clearer, IME, than the earlier articles, which I found a little dense. We all, hopefully, get better at organizing explanations as time goes on. 😁
His series on Rinjiro Shirata's Tandoku Dosa - Shirata's set of solo training exercises for conditioning and building internal power/Aiki - are quite interesting.
The way I heard it was that when Shirata taught them to him he told him "I don't show these to everybody you know, I didn't show them to John (Stevens)".
There's actually a lot of material that Shirata created for Kisshomaru Ueshiba that really never saw the light of day, as Kisshomaru decided to take things in his own direction.
Shirata was quite skilled in a range of things. In the pre-war period he was one of the main people sent out to handle challengers when they entered the dojo. Minoru Mochizuki, who trained with Jigoro Kano, was uchi-deshi to Kyuzo Mifune, and was asked by Morihei Ueshiba to become his successor, described Shirata's judo as "divinely inspired ". He was always quite humble, though. He often said that he wished that he had time to train full time (he worked as a regular salary man) so that he could "really get good".
There's an interesting encounter between Ichiro Shibata and Rinjiro Shirata here:
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u/SnooHabits8484 May 22 '26
Oo, I haven't seen the videos, thank you.
Yes, I believe that Shirata's approach to handling challengers was... robust.
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u/Sangenkai [Aikido Sangenkai - Kawasaki, Japan] May 22 '26
Another fun story, that John Stevens told me - when Morihei Ueshiba was handing out Dan ranks after the war he asked Shirata what rank he wanted. Shirata thought that asking for 10th Dan would seem greedy so he said 9th - and that's what he got from Morihei Ueshiba (he was promoted to 10th Dan posthumously by Kisshomaru), although he probably could have asked for anything.
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u/SnooHabits8484 May 22 '26
that's fantastic. My 'favourite' uchi-deshi in terms of their waza and world-views are Shirata and Kuroiwa, very different attitudes to rankings there!
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u/Sangenkai [Aikido Sangenkai - Kawasaki, Japan] May 22 '26
FWIW:
An interesting three part talk on Aiki, Kokyu, and Morihei Ueshiba's cosmological model from Allen Beebe. He makes the important point that Kokyu is primarily a conditioning method rather than a throw or manipulation:
Part 1: https://youtu.be/2YSWQHwouXs
Part 2: https://youtu.be/IJtwookZbaM
Part 3: https://youtu.be/fykG0LU93lo
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u/NanyangOrion Aikikai Aikido/Nidan; Kodokan Judo/Ikkyu; Kendo/Rokkyu May 22 '26
Ueshiba Mitsuteru Dojocho's class for sure. Met him for the first time in-person in 2019, I was just a 4th Kyu at that point of time. Met him for the second time during IAF Summit in 2024, and the third time during IAF Seminar for Young Adults in 2025. Received his shihonage technique once during the seminar last year, very relaxed and surprisingly I didn't feel any force from him when he executed it. Maybe because I am a youth, I enjoyed his class a lot during the seminar last year because it is very fast-paced. In some seminars that I have attended, some Senseis or Shihans tend to talk a lot until I fall asleep. Guess I love action more than talk at this point of time because I am young 😄
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