Recommended reading: “Interview with Hakaru Mori of the Takumakai” by Stanley Pranin

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.

We have nearly forty dojos, with a total of about six hundred members. The reason we have grown to be such a large organization is, I believe, due to our use of the seminar system, which began at the Asahi Newspaper Company for teaching groups of students. Originally, the classical martial ways were taught one-on-one, as individual lessons. I suspect that Sokaku Takeda O-Sensei taught on an individual basis as well. However, we could not teach the way it was done in places such as the Asahi Newspaper Dojo, and so we organized things into a seminar-style approach where we gathered together those who wanted to learned and taught them.

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Posted by Aikido Journal on Jan 4th, 2009: Recommended Reading (post a comment)