Kisshomaru Ueshiba,
Aikido Doshu, passed away on Monday, 4 January, 1999, at
the age of 77. The cause of death was respiratory failure.
The otsuya ceremony (watching with the body) was held at
the Hombu Dojo, Tokyo, on Friday, 6 January, and was followed
a day later by a funeral ceremony, also held at the Hombu
Dojo. Both ceremonies were attended by well over 1,000 people,
from Japan and the rest of the world. There was a similar
large attendance at the Farewell Ceremony, which took place
on 17 January at the Aoyama Funeral Hall in Tokyo.
Kisshomaru Ueshiba was born at Ayabe on 27 June, 1921, the
third son of Morihei Ueshiba and his wife Hatsu. Kisshomaru
attended school in Tokyo and graduated from the Faculty
of Politics and Economics at the prestigious Waseda University.
From an early age Kisshomaru began to practise aikido and
around 1941 he was designated as the successor to the Founder,
Morihei Ueshiba. Then aged around 20, he became the nucleus
of the young instructors at the Hombu Dojo and with colleagues
such as Kisaburo Osawa, Kisshomaru pushed forward the practice
of the martial art developed by his father, which, by 1942,
had been designated as 'Aikido'. During these war years,
the Aiki Shrine was established in Iwama, Ibaragi Prefecture,
and with it the Iwama Dojo. The Founder spent much of his
time in Iwama, leaving his son to look after things in Tokyo.
In 1947 the Aikikai Foundation
was established and a year later was officially recognised
by the Education Ministry of Japan. Kisshomaru Ueshiba became
General Director of the Hombu Dojo and established the organisational
structure which still exists today. Regular practice was
resumed at the Hombu Dojo in 1949 and it fell to Kisshomaru
also to organise this. The postwar years saw the frenetic
development of aikido both in Japan and overseas and this
was also something for which Kisshomaru Ueshiba was largely
responsible. Aikido clubs were created in cities, townships,
companies and universities all over Japan. In 1958 Seigo
Yamaguchi Shihan went to Burma to teach aikido there and
he was followed overseas by other shihans, such as Hiroshi
Tada, Nobuyoshi Tamura, Yoshimitsu Yamada, Katsuaki Asai,
Kazuo Chiba and Seiichi Sugano, who taught aikido as resident
instructors in Europe, America and Australia. Although they
were direct disciples of O Sensei, all these instructors
answered primarily to Kisshomaru Ueshiba.
On April 26, 1969, the Founder
of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, passed away and Kisshomaru Ueshiba
became the second Aikido Doshu. As well as leading the regular
instruction at the Hombu Dojo, Kisshomaru Ueshiba had begun
visiting the fledgling overseas aikido organisations as
early as 1963, with a visit to the USA and Hawaii. Thereafter,
as the new Doshu, he intensified the pace of visits at home
and overseas. The All-Japan Annual Demonstration had become
a regular feature of the Japanese aikido calendar and the
network of regional student federations, each with their
own annual demonstration, had been completed in 1972, with
the inauguration of the Chugoku-Shikoku federation.
The overseas expansion of aikido
reached an important landmark with the creation of the International
Aikido Federation in 1975. Doshu Kisshomaru Ueshiba became
the first Life-President of the Federation. The inaugural
Congress of the I.A.F. was held in 1976 in Tokyo.
In addition to the instructional
visits and demonstrations in Japan and the rest of the world,
Ueshiba Doshu still found the time to write about aikido.
The first book, called simply Aikido in English,
was published in 1957 and I believe this is still in print.
Aikido was followed by about a dozen more, including
a two-volume biography of his father and a most elegantly
produced and written work entitled Aikido Shintei (Aikido
in its Essence).
In 1987, in recognition of his
efforts to spread aikido, Doshu received the Blue Ribbon
Medal from the Japanese government. This honour was the
first of many to be bestowed by governments and institutions
at home and abroad, culminating in 1994 with a visit to
Pope John Paul II in Rome and the bestowal of the Japanese
Order of the Sacred Treasure a year later.
By 1998, Doshu, who was then in
his mid-seventies, was becoming increasingly frail and left
much of the responsibilities for running the Hombu Dojo
and the Aikikai to his son Moriteru, who had become General
Director of the Hombu Dojo in 1986. Moriteru Ueshiba followed
in his father's footsteps undertook the tasks of instruction
at the Hombu and the ambassadorial visits to aikido organisations
in Japan and overseas. He also eventually succeeded his
father as Chairman of the Aikikai. Ueshiba Doshu nevertheless
summoned up the energy to be present at the All-Japan Aikido
Demonstration in May 1998 and also to attend the I.A.F.
1998 Directing Committee Meeting, where, as President, he
gave the opening & closing speeches and also participated
in some of the discussions.
Doshu Kisshomaru Ueshiba entered
a Tokyo hospital in December, 1998. Unfortunately, owing
to his rapidly declining health, this was to prove the last
of a number of such extended periods. Kagami-biraki was
approaching and everybody who knew that Doshu had been hospitalised
was hoping against hope that he would summon yet more of
his extraordinary energy and pull through once more, but
this was not to be. He passed away quietly at about 5.30
pm on January 4.
Aikido as an international family
was the keynote of the ceremony which took place at Aoyama
Funeral Hall on January 17, 1999, which was attended by
many participants from overseas. The ceremony was similar
to the actual funeral ceremony held on January 7. Priests
chanted prayers and also a short biography of Doshu and
then all the participants went up to the kamiza, where Doshu's
photograph and medals were displayed. We were given sprigs
of sakaki leaves to present as tamakushi. (Sakaki is the
cleyera ochnacea plant, which plays a central role in ancient
Japanese mythology. It was used to lure the sun goddess
Amaterasu out of the cave in the Kojiki. The sacred tree
is decked with paper and given to the shinto deities as
a tamakushi or sacred offering.) After this the participants
gave a short greeting to Doshu's wife and family as they
filed out of the hall. The ceremony was a very simple and
moving commemoration of a life totally dedicated to aikido.
Some Personal Recollections
I first met Doshu Kisshomaru Ueshiba in April 1974, when
he visited the United States. I was a student at Harvard
University and practised aikido at the Boston dojo. One
evening I went to the dojo, to be told that a very special
event was to take place. I was still a beginner and had
never met any high-ranking instructors apart from Mitsunari
Kanai, the head of the Boston dojo and my own teacher, let
alone the person in charge of the whole martial art and
its organisation.
Doshu gave a class and the one
thing I remember about his aikido was the enormous circular
movements and the constantly airborne ukes. After this experience
I met other high-ranking shihans like Osawa Kisaburo, who
at that time was the General Director of the Hombu Dojo.
I did not meet Doshu again until 1980, in Japan. I had come
to live in Japan as an instructor at Hiroshima University
and duly paid my first visit to the Hombu. I was taken to
meet Doshu at his house, right next to the Hombu Dojo. At
this time I could not speak Japanese and so the conversation
had to be translated. Doshu was very kind and courteous
and encouraged me to practise hard, but also to make my
Japanese students study hard. He was very candid about the
fact that when he had been a student at Waseda, he had not
studied very much at all.
I have some vivid memories of Doshu's
practice. I do not remember exactly when it was, but on
one occasion I was practising at the Hombu. The technique
was nikkyo and suddenly there was Doshu right in front of
me. I was clearly not doing the technique correctly and
he motioned me to attack him. I was drawn into the movement
and the technique was applied very slowly, delicately and
firmly - exactly in the required spot. No words, no gestures,
just a slight bow afterwards and a smile. I remember the
precision of his technique and thought at the time that
if Doshu had not begun aikido, he should have become a surgeon.
On another occasion, the technique was suwari-waza-kokyu-ho.
Again, Doshu approached and saw that something was wrong.
I was invited to grasp his wrists and again, the slow, delicate,
firm, indeed inexorable, movement, totally unforced and
totally effective. I think this was one of the Friday evening
practices at the Hombu. Doshu usually taught the Friday
evening class and many Hombu shihans took this class. On
one occasion I had Fujita Sensei as my partner. Practice
with Fujita Sensei was and is always invigorating and on
this occasion I distinctly remember Doshu coming and watching
our practice. He stood, pondered for a few minutes and then
wandered off with a slight smile.
In 1984, I had the pleasure of
meeting Doshu again. This occasion was an I.A.F. meeting
and I was told to appear at the Hombu Dojo at 9 o'clock
in the morning. I was reminded by Moriteru Ueshiba to be
sure to wear a formal suit and to bring some Hiroshima University
meishi (business cards). When I arrived at the Hombu I was
met by Osawa Sensei and told that I had to accompany Doshu
on a formal visit to an extremely important person (whose
name I will not disclose). A little later Doshu appeared
and he, Mr Veneri (the newly-elected I.A.F. Chairman) and
myself got into a car. We set off and were driving near
the Japanese government's state guest house, when I realised
with a shock that I had left my wallet, containing money,
alien registration card etc, at the Hombu. At that time
the President of Korea was on a controversial state visit
to Japan and was staying at the guest house. The police
were out in force conducting random checks. In Japan it
is a serious offence for foreign residents not to be in
possession of the alien registration card and I was in a
silent panic that the police would stop us, for they seemed
to be flagging down an awful lot of cars. I was wondering
whether and how Doshu would deal with the situation of being
in a car with two foreign criminals (for Mr Veneri whispered
that he also had forgotten his passport), but, luckily we
were not stopped. Not a word was spoken but the relief was
almost tangible. I am sure that Doshu sensed that something
was amiss.
We were driven to the centre of
Tokyo, but arrived too early for our appointment. We got
out of the car and Doshu led us down some steps to a self-service
coffee shop. He motioned us to sit down and then, to our
astonishment, he took a tray and waited his turn at the
counter. (I could imagine several Hombu assistants leaping
forward at this point, but I think Doshu was at that moment
very happy to be on his own.) He came back to table with
three cups of coffee. He sat down and we had a conversation,
language difficulties notwithstanding. We talked about sumo
and Doshu admitted that he liked sumo very much. He was
a fan of Chiyonofuji, who at that time was a famous sumo
champion. Chiyonofuji was smaller than average and always
had to use his abundant skill to overcome much heavier opponents.
For this reason, he had shown some interest in aikido. I
was very charmed at being able to talk to Doshu in such
an informal setting. Because of his high office Doshu was
usually surrounded by a phalanx of attendants and meetings
were always rather stiff and formal. On this occasion we
met Doshu as Kisshomaru Sensei and not as Doshu.
As an I.A.F. official, I met Doshu
on many occasions after that and he was very happy that
we were able to converse in Japanese. He always remembered
me and talked about aikido friends we both knew. One of
his great anxieties was the international development of
aikido which he had done so much to promote, and on several
occasions Doshu charged me with keeping the I.A.F. to the
true Way, as taught by the Founder. Although the I.A.F.
is a large organisation and I am sure that he did not intend
to single me out alone, I felt this keenly, almost as a
personal responsibility which he gave me, and one which
it will be very difficult to discharge. I think he deeply
felt the divisions and discord within the aikido world and
grieved very much at the split between himself and Koichi
Tohei, for example.
Aikido tends to be presented as
a seamless garment, but the reality is somewhat different.
Divisions have been endemic in the martial arts and the
splits within aikido began to appear even in O Sensei's
own lifetime. However, I think that Doshu felt that discord
somehow sullied the treasure which he had received from
O Sensei and which he had made it his life's work to pass
on.
My last meeting with Doshu was
in the summer of 1998 in Tokyo. We had an I.A.F. meeting
and I went to pay a brief visit to his house. He invited
me to sit down and wanted to have a conversation. Unfortunately
time was short and it was very brief. When we finished,
he thanked me for taking the time to travel "all the way"
from Hiroshima to Tokyo.
Since I began to practise aikido
around 1970, I never met O Sensei and I sometimes envy those
aikido instructors and practitioners who knew him personally.
Of course, Morihei Ueshiba will always be remembered as
the Founder of the art, but I think that his son Kisshomaru
will also be remembered as the person who transformed aikido
into something which is at the same time a traditional martial
art and also available for everybody, whether Japanese or
foreign. He had the awesome responsibility of following
in the footsteps of a genius: of inheriting from his father
a precious gift and for developing and passing on this gift
to others. I think that, more than any other person, Kisshomaru
Ueshiba has been responsible for the vast international
spread of aikido, for enabling people like myself - a student
in England in the 1960s when I first heard about aikido,
to practise the art and become a member of a huge international
family. Of course, there are dangers in the rapid international
expansion of an art which is steeped in Japanese tradition.
I am sure that Kisshomaru Sensei was aware of the dangers
and took a calculated, but enlightened, risk.
Peter Goldsbury
I.A.F. Chairman
(NOTE. This article was previously published,
either entirely or in parts, in the Aikido Journal and the
BAF Newsletter. I am grateful to Stanley Pranin, editor
and publisher of the Aikido Journal, and also to the British
Aikido Federation (BAF) for allowing me to reproduce it
here.)
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