Aikido Technique Videos and Self Defense Training

“[I]n Aikido, we are trying to reach the purity through gestures in spite of a physical constraint represented by our partner/adversary. As a consequence, as soon as this conflict is going to be resolved, keeping in mind a research towards precision, placement and economy, the motion will be closer to purity. If it is pure, then it is natural and therefore, it is beautiful. As you see, the aesthetic is not an aim in itself. Aikido is a martial discipline but it is also an art and as soon as we use the body in from this perspective, we must work on the purity of the gesture. Aesthetic is the final outcome of all this work.

Brian Kagen is an avid web researcher with a particular interest in martial arts. His training background includes both judo and aikido. He has contributed hundreds of article links over the years for AJ readers.

The article below has been selected from the extensive archives of the Online Aikido Journal. We believe that an informed readership with knowledge of the history, techniques and philosophy of aikido is essential to the growth of the art and its adherence to the principles espoused by Aikido Founder Morihei Ueshiba.

Those who merely saw the founder in an exhibition or during training in the dojo and, of course, those who were his students and were taught personally during his lifetime are, even now, unanimous in their comments. First, with regard to the awe inspired by the “piercing brilliance of the founder’s eyes” seemingly capable of penetrating an impregnable fortress; and also, the “deep impression of instantly victorious absolute strength” of spirit, mind and body; and finally, in their conclusion that his could only be described as “divine technique.”

Toshirō Mifune (三船 敏郎 Mifune Toshirō 1 April 1920 – 24 December 1997) was a Japanese actor who appeared in almost 170 feature films.

His imposing bearing, acting range, facility with foreign languages and lengthy partnership with acclaimed director Akira Kurosawa made him the most famous Japanese actor of his time, and easily the best known to Western audiences. He often portrayed a samurai or ronin, who was usually coarse and gruff (Kurosawa once explained that the only weakness he could find with Mifune and his acting ability was his "rough" voice), inverting the popular stereotype of the genteel, clean-cut samurai. In such films as Seven Samurai and Yojimbo, he played characters who were often comically lacking in manners, but replete with practical wisdom and experience, understated nobility, and, in the case of Yojimbo, unmatched fighting prowess. Sanjuro in particular contrasts this earthy warrior spirit with the useless, sheltered propriety of the court samurai. Kurosawa highly valued Mifune for his effortless portrayal of unvarnished emotion, once commenting that he could convey in only three feet of film an emotion that would require the average Japanese actor ten feet.

On the other hand, his portrayal of Musashi Miyamoto in Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai Trilogy is deliberately made to become the epitome of samurai honour and manners.


Toshirō Mifune as bandit Tajōmaru in RashomonMifune was famous for his self-deprecating sense of humor, which often found its way into his film roles. He was renowned for the effort he put into his performances. To prepare for Seven Samurai and Rashomon, Mifune reportedly studied footage of lions in the wild; for Ánimas Trujano, he studied tapes of Mexican actors speaking, so he could recite all his lines in Spanish. In his earliest film roles in English like Grand Prix, made in 1966, he learned his lines phonetically. This met with limited success and his voice was often dubbed by Paul Frees. By the time he made Red Sun in 1971 he had become somewhat more proficent in the language and his voice is heard throughout this multinational western. He was always disappointed that he did not have a larger career in the West. His most prominent English-language role was probably playing Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in Midway.

Early in the development of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, director George Lucas reportedly considered Mifune for the role of Obi-Wan Kenobi.[citation needed] He had played an analogous role (General Rokurota) in The Hidden Fortress, a film greatly admired by Lucas. Its plot and characters have some parallels that Lucas carried into his first Star Wars film.

Mifune has been credited as originating the "roving warrior" archetype, which he perfected during his collaboration with Kurosawa. Clint Eastwood was among the first of many American actors to adopt this persona, which he used to great effect in his Western roles, especially the spaghetti westerns made with Sergio Leone.

Most of the sixteen Kurosawa–Mifune films are considered cinema classics. These include Rashomon, Stray Dog, Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress, High and Low, Throne of Blood (an adaptation of Shakespeare's MacBeth), Yojimbo, and Sanjuro.

Mifune and Kurosawa finally parted ways after Red Beard. Several factors contributed to the rift that ended this career-spanning collaboration. Most of Mifune's contemporaries acted in several different movies throughout the year. Since Red Beard required Mifune to grow a natural beard — one he had to keep for the entirety of the film's two years of shooting — he was unable to act in any other films during the production. This put Mifune and his financially strapped production company deeply into debt, creating friction between him and Kurosawa. Although Red Beard played to packed houses in Japan and Europe, which helped Mifune recoup some of his losses, the ensuing years held varying outcomes for both Mifune and Kurosawa. After the film's release, the careers of each man took different arcs: Mifune continued to enjoy success with a range of samurai and war-themed films (Rebellion, Samurai Assassin, the Emperor and a General, among others). In contrast, Kurosawa's output of films dwindled and drew mixed responses. During this time, Kurosawa apparently attempted suicide. In 1980, Mifune experienced popularity with mainstream American audiences through his role as Lord Toranaga in the television miniseries Shogun. Yet Kurosawa did not rejoice in his estranged friend's success, and publicly made derisive remarks about Shogun....

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Aikijutsu Academy of Indianapolis | Senso-Ryu | Ted Hanulak Sensei

We would like to bring to your attention that we have republished the authoritative work by Katsuyuki Kondo, Menkyo Kaiden, titled Daito-ryu Aikijujutsu Hiden Mokuroku.

This is the first book in English to introduce the technical curriculum of Daito-ryu Aikijujutsu as originally taught by Sokaku Takeda. It contains the 31 techniques of the ikkajo series of the Hiden Mokuroku, the first level of study in Daito-ryu.

The article below has been selected from the extensive archives of the Online Aikido Journal. We believe that an informed readership with knowledge of the history, techniques and philosophy of aikido is essential to the growth of the art and its adherence to the principles espoused by Aikido Founder Morihei Ueshiba.

Having received all my formal education in the UK and the U.S., albeit quite a few years ago, and having some twenty years experience in teaching university students in Japan, I suppose I am in a position to make some comparisons between these western countries and Japan. Since I have also practiced aikido in these three countries, though I have spent a much longer period of training here in Japan, I can also apply the comparisons to martial arts training in a martial art like aikido. I shall start by looking at education and martial arts education generally, and in following articles examine the concepts of teaching, learning and the syllabus in more detail.

From the AikiWeb.com website:

“…I graded to Shodan in January this year and since then I feel as though I have been sliding backwards from a technical perspective. Techniques that I once performed without any real thought no longer feel ‘comfortable’ and I find myself struggling for comfort with the basics on some days.

I came across a quote the other day which feels very close to what I've recently been thinking about.

Maturity begins when we’re content to feel we’re right about something without feeling the necessity to prove someone else wrong.

Sydney Harris

For me, this means to be positive (or, turning it to negative: stop complaining and harming others). Stop commanding and start co-operating. Criticise constructively or, if you can't, learn more and criticize only then. Before anyone thinks I'm talking about how someone I know should behave (which could easily be the case as there have been several people recently whose actions I don't understand) please note that, selfishly, all this is for myself to learn to be a better person living a more harmonious life... or for you if you find that my thoughts can benefit you as well.

I'm writing the background chapters for my PhD thesis which is supposed to involve the 'critical discussion' of relevant literature. I'm finding that most of the things I do in my own research can be backed up by these discussed research papers so I need to discuss and write about their findings. However, I also found that it's very easy to find mistakes, errors in anything you read. If there isn't any better you can spot the only spelling mistake in the 12 page article. It is a temptation to write "this result of the paper is very good but these and these statements are not properly backed up". If I want to write this I have to prove it. But my aim is not to prove that someone else is wrong but what they are right about is useful for me. So I just write the positives, mention the negatives if I improved those and that's it. So it's still not maturity as in the quote but at least it's not complete immaturity.

This maturity can also be tested on the reviews of papers submitted to various conferences or journals. I know several people who got two reviews for their submitted paper (it's standard procedure to have at least two reviewers for one paper), one review said: "Very nice, very relevant to the topic of the conference, let's accept it" and the other was something like "no, it's utterly rubbish, can't even express their thoughts in proper sentences and paragraph 2.3.1 and 3.5.1, etc... has spelling mistakes here and there". Maybe both of them were right in some sense but the latter didn't show maturity for sure. It's just the inner child crying that something is not prefectly presented to them. I guess this might be one of the reasons for doing the reviews anonymously :).

I even read a paper somewhere about how many of the world's most significant scientific publications have been rejected when the authors first tried to publish them somewhere [1][2 - ppt, slide 7]. A famous example is that certain Mr Brin and Mr Page with their Pagerank algorithm have been first rejected at SIGIR (the top of information retrieval conferences)...


As always, I also try to connect both the quote and its relevant real life examples to my aikido studies: Sometimes I feel that I need to say to a beginner "you are not doing this and that right, look I'm better!", and then I think "Hmm...would I have been happy at the beginning if everyone had just listed my mistakes and showed off their skills?". I would have dropped out very soon. It wouldn't be much different for a shy beginner if you showed them how to correct all these mistakes, especially if they are aware of the problems but haven't yet practiced enough to correct them. So if I can I try to show only one thing at a time to avoid total confusion.

One other thing in a training, and I think this is more serious, that sometimes you see or feel that students with more experience and higher rank than you make mistakes. You know what's wrong so you could prove they are not right but you have no idea how to do it better as your mistakes are at a lower level and you need to get to the level where these mistakes appear in your practice. This is real immaturity in the above sense but I think I'm improving in this sense as well. Slowly, but I know I do :).

The good thing in all of these though is that you can see there's always a lot to learn, a lot to improve and a lot to think about how to learn and improve more. To become a more mature, harmoniously living, positive person. Amen :).


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From the Fightinarts.com website:

…The names Jiujutsu and Yawara were the most widely known and used. In tracing the history of the art we are met at the outset with difficulties which are not uncommon in similar researches, the unreliableness of much of the literature of the art. Printed books on the subject are scarce, and whilst there are innumerable manuscripts belonging to various schools of the arts, many of them are contradictory and unsatisfactory. The originators of new schools seem oftentimes to have made history to suit their own purposes, and thus the material for a consistent and clear account of the origins and rise of Jiujutsu are very scanty. In early times, the knowledge of the history and the art was in the possession of the teachers of the various schools, who handed down information to their pupils as a secret in order to give it a sacred appearance. Moreover, the seclusion of one province from another, as a consequence of the feudal system of Japan, prevented much acquaintance between teachers and pupils of the various schools, and thus contrary and often contradictory accounts of its history were handed down and believed. Further, it is to be noted that the interest of its students was devoted more to the successes in the practice of the art than to knowledge of its rise and progress in the country. Turning to the origin of Jiujutsu, as is to be expected various accounts are given.

The old Zen master's health was fading. Knowing his death was near, he announced to all the monks that he soon would be passing down his robe and rice bowl to appoint the next master of the monastery. His choice, he said, would be based on a contest. Anyone seeking the appointment was required to demonstrate his spiritual wisdom by submitting a poem.

The head monk, the most obvious successor, presented a poem that was well composed and insightful. All the monks anticipated his selection as their new leader. However, the next morning another poem appeared on the wall in the hallway, apparently written during the dark hours of the night.

It stunned everyone with it's elegance and profundity but no one knew who the author was. Determined to find this person, the old master began questioning all the monks. To his surprise, the investigation led to the rather quiet kitchen worker who pounded rice for the meals. Upon hearing the news, the jealous head monk and his comrades plotted to kill their rival. In secret, the old master passed down his robe and bowl to the rice pounder, who quickly fled from the monastery, later to become a widely renowned Zen teacher.

Aikijutsu Academy of Indianapolis | Senso-Ryu | Ted Hanulak Sensei

With the release of our DVD title, “Morihiro Saito: Lost Seminars, Part 2” we began offering a special price reduction for the two-DVD set.

This DVD features an outstanding seminar given by Morihiro Saito Sensei in Italy in May 1985. Saito Sensei was 58 years old at the time and in fine form. This particular event was the third of many seminars he would give over the years in Italy. The program also includes an introduction and closing comments by Aikido Journal Editor Stanley Pranin who accompanied Saito Sensei during these seminars as his interpreter. This high-quality, professionally shot event has now been fully restored and is presented for the first time.