000: The Admiral Isamu Takeshita Training Notes — Introduction

Throughout Morihei Ueshiba’s long life he had close relationships with many extraordinary individuals not only from the world of budo, but also from political, military and financial circles. One person in particular — though largely unknown to practitioners of aikido today — played an essential role in the spread of this art in prewar Japan. His name is Admiral Isamu Takeshita.

Admiral Takeshita was not only an admirer of Ueshiba’s superlative martial skills, but also an enthusiastic practitioner himself even though already well into middle age. He assiduously attended practices for some 15 years starting in 1925, and for a time Ueshiba taught at Takeshita’s home.

It was during the early years of practice in Tokyo that Takeshita regularly recorded notes numbering into the hundreds of pages on the content of Ueshiba’s training sessions. The handwritten notations consist mainly of detailed descriptions of the Daito-ryu techniques then being taught by Ueshiba. These notes represent an important legacy not only for aikido practitioners, but also for adherents of Daito-ryu. They constitute additional evidence of the close historical and technical relationship between the two arts.

At this time, we are beginning a project designed to preserve, translate and disseminate a portion of the surviving notes of Admiral Takeshita. We will publish a transliteration into modern Japanese of the original texts, a searchable, keyed-in version in Japanese together with an English translation.

We would encourage the aikido community, especially native Japanese speakers to participate in this volunteer project through which we will be able to rediscover the early techniques of Morihei Ueshiba that would eventually evolve into modern aikido.

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