Customer Reviews

What Is Aikido

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This was written in 1961, after Koichi Tohei's first volume, "Aikido: The Arts of Self Defense" (1960). At that time, Tohei was Chief Instructor of the Aikikai. Later on because of politics, conflict, and all of that, Tohei formed his own organization, and for a while stopped using the term "Aikido" in favor of the term "Ki" (same as Chinese "Chi").

Tohei explains the principles of Aikido in plain easy to understand language. Included throughout are numerous photographs and illustrations. The inside portion of the book shows a stately Ueshiba Morihei Sensei (founder of Aikido), and a young Ueshiba Kisshomaru, as well as a young Tohei!

Principles such as ki, as well as a demonstration of 15 techniques explaining balance, rotation, physics, etc. Good chapters at the end about the history of Ueshiba Morihei Sensei and also Tohei Sensei. Earlier editions of this book were issued by Rikugei Publishing, the later paperback edition by Japan Publications, the same company that did Mas Oyama's What is Karate and Kazuo Kudo's Dynamic Judo, so the quality is definately there.

This is Tohei Sensei's second book. In the first chapter he teaches us what Aikido is. The 2nd chapter he explains Ki and then the one point. The rest of the book explains the technical side of Aikido, complete with photos.

Tohei Sensei takes us through each technique with both explanations and photo's. this is the best book on Aikido I have thus far read. Must be in ever library.