The History Of Aikido

Aikido's founder, Morihei Ueshiba, was born in Japan on  December 14, 1883. As a boy, he often saw local thugs beat up his  father for political reasons. He set out to make himself strong so that  he could take revenge. He devoted himself to hard physical conditioning  and eventually to the practice of martial arts, receiving certificates  of mastery in several styles of jujitsu, fencing, and spear fighting.  In spite of his impressive physical and martial capabilities, however,  he felt very dissatisfied.

He began delving into religions in hopes of  finding a deeper significance to life, all the while continuing to  pursue his studies of budo, or the martial arts. By combining his  martial training with his religious and political ideologies, he created the modern martial art of aikido. Ueshiba decided on the name; in 1942 (before that he called his martial art and on the technical side, aikido is rooted in several styles of jujitsu  (from which modern judo is also derived), in particular  daitoryu-(aiki)jujitsu, as well as sword and spear fighting arts. 

Oversimplifying somewhat, we may say that aikido takes the joint locks  and throws from jujitsu and combines them with the body movements of  sword and spear fighting. However, we must also realize that many  aikido techniques are the result of Master Ueshiba's own innovation. On the religious side, Ueshiba was a devotee of one of Japan's  so-called; Omotokyo. Omotokyo was (and is) part  neo-Shintoism, and part socio-political idealism. One goal of Omotokyo  has been the unification of all humanity in a single heavenly kingdom  on where all religions would be united under the banner of  Omotokyo.

It is impossible sufficiently to understand many of  O-sensei's writings and sayings without keeping the influence of  Omotokyo firmly in mind.

Despite what many people think or claim, there is no unified  philosophy of aikido. What there is, instead, is a disorganized and  only partially coherent collection of religious, ethical, and  metaphysical beliefs which are only more or less shared by aikidoka,  and which are either transmitted by word of mouth or found in scattered  publications about aikido.