Instructor Lineage

O-Sensei Morihei Ueshiba
1883 - 1969

Morihei Ueshiba called O-Sensei (Great Teacher) by his students was born in Tanabe, Wakayama Prefecture, Japan on December 14, 1883.

The only son of Yoroku and Yuki Ueshiba's five children, Morihei was raised in a somewhat privileged setting. His father was a wealthy landowner who also traded in lumber and fish and was politically active. Morihei Ueshiba was a rather weak, sickly child and bookish in his inclinations. At a young age his father encouraged him to take up sumo wrestling and swimming and entertained him with stories of his great-grandfather Kichiemon who was considered a very strong samurai in his era.

He studied various sword fighting and jujitsu styles intensively.  In 1919 he focused on the matrial arts as a practice of harmony and not aggression, and thus developed the "Art of Peace." In 1942, in the midst of the chaos of World War II, O-Sensei named his new martial art Aikido and moved to the small country town of Iwama. There he continued to practice, teach, and refine Aikido until he passed away in 1969.  Several films of O-Sensei show him teaching and training until his death at age 86. 
 
Morihei Ueshiba is remembered by his pupils as a master of the martial arts, whose studies transcended technical matters to include a moral and philosophical view of the world based around harmony in the face of aggression. The many branches of Aikido in existence today virtually all trace their Aikido Lineage back to him.



Morihiro Saito Sensei
9th Dan Aikikai
1928 - 2002 

Morihiro Saito was born in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan in 1928. Growing up in a poor farming village in the 1930s and early 40s, he recounted having the same interest in Samurai heroes as most other Japanese boys. In the Japanese schools at that time, the martial arts of kendo and judo were taught to students, and Saito chose to study kendo.

In the years immediately following the end of World War II, the carrying of weapons of any kind, as well the practice of martial arts, was prohibited.  As a result, Saito felt he should study some kind of unarmed self-defense technique, and began training in Shinto-ryu karate at the Shudokan in Meguro. After a short time, his work with the Japanese National Railways transferred him to Iwama, and he was forced to find other martial arts training. Thinking judo would be a useful complement to his kendo and karate skills, he began training at a judo dojo in Ishioka. In the summer of 1946, however, Saito heard stories about an "old man doing strange techniques up on the mountain near Iwama." It seemed that people were confused about what martial art, exactly, this old man was practicing, but one judo instructor said the man was teaching "Ueshiba-ryu Judo."
 
Morihiro Saito began training with O-Sensei in 1946 at the age of 18.  For 23 years Saito Sensei trained, farmed, and kept the Iwama Dojo a center of learning and With O-Sensei's passing in 1969 Saito Sensei was put in charge of the Iwama dojo, and became guardian of the Aiki-shrine.
 
Today, Saito Sensei is remembered for a clear and structured way of teaching, and the organization of the techniques that comprise Iwama-Ryu Aikido