|
Koichi Tohei (born January 1920) is a 10th Dan aikidoka and founder of the Ki Society and it's style of aikido, officially known as Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido - "aikido with mind and body unified" but commonly known as Ki-Aikido. The Ki Society is also known as Ki no Kenkyukai, "Ki Society International".
Koichi Tohei was born 1920 in Shitaya ward of Tokyo. As a boy he was sickly and frail, leading his father to recommend Tohei for judo studies which he did. He trained hard and his body prospered, but soon after he began his pre-college studies at Keio University, he developed a case of the pleurisy (causes great pains in the chest area and difficulty&painful breathing) which forced Koichi to take a year off.
Tohei was distressed at the thought of losing his newfound strength of body and his means of training it, so he decided to replace his judo studies with Zen meditation and misogi excercises. As with his judo studies, Tohei entered the training of the mind with fervor and soon prospered despite his serious health issues. After his recovery of the pleurisy, of which the doctors could find no trace of, Tohei would later become convinced that it was his efforts in training his mind and cultivating his ki that had helped him to heal and recover.
After his fit with the pleurisy he returned to his judo studies, but the studies was not satisfactory for Tohei, he wanted more than just physical training and did not think that judo was the best way for him to train anymore. Although he did continue with his studies until he started with aikido.
Koichi Tohei and aikido
In 1940 at 19 years of age, Toheis judo-instructor Shohei Mori, recommended him to meet with the founder of aikido Morihei Ueshiba. At this point Tohei was more or less dissatisfied with his judo studies and he set of to see this master of the new martial art he had heard of.
According to Tohei himself, in a 1996 interview, when he first met with an Aikido-instructor and did some techniques at the Ueshiba dojo, he had doubts about Aikido and its value to him. That changed however, when Ueshiba entered the Dojo and started to do his techniques on the instructors. Tohei was still not entirely convinced until Ueshiba asked Tohei to step unto the mat and try to grab him. Tohei's attempts were unsuccesful, and after this personal demonstration by Ueshiba, Tohei asked to enroll in aikido training on the spot.
Tohei continued to train his mind as well as his body in with meditation, misogi and aikido.
Tohei trained aikido for 6 months before being sent as an representative (dairi) of aikido to teach at the Shumei Okawa school and the military police academy. This was before Tohei was ranked in either Dan or Kyu. Ueshiba would present Tohei with the rank of 5th dan after Tohei had begun his military service.
War years
This section needs information, feel free to add what you know.
Post-war years
In 1969 Tohei was asked by Ueshiba to accept the rank newly created rank of 10th dan which Tohei accepted. A few years earlier the top-rank in Aikido had been 8th dan, but the ranks was expanded by Ueshiba for practical reasons.
Tohei and Hawaii aikido
This section needs information, feel free to add what you know.
Creation of the Ki no Kenkyukai
The events leading up to the split between the main Aikido-organization of Aikikai and Koichi Tohei were further fueled with the death of Morihei Ueshiba in 1969. His son Kisshomaru Ueshiba would inherit the title of Doshu. At the time of Ueshibas death, Koichi Tohei was chief instructor of the Humbo Dojo, present headquarters of Aikikai, a title he would retain until his official split from Aikikai in 1974.
One of the major causes of the conflict arose from Koichi Toheis emphasis on the principle of Ki in aikido. Tohei wanted aikido to lean on those principles more firmly and with practical excercises to both cultivate and test Ki in the daily aikido practice. He had already started teaching these principles during his own training sessions at Humbo dojo, but the majority of the other instructors would not, other than those who agreed with Tohei in this matter. However, Toheis actions were not looked favourably upon by both Kissomaru and many senior instructors, and they strongly encouraged him NOT to teach his principles and techniques, as they were, in the Humbo Dojo. Toheis reply to this was that he had the right to teach it outside Humbo Dojo, which he did.
But the tensions still remained among the senior cadre of instructors who still did not approve of Toheis way of teaching, and his version of how Ki should be taught and cultivated. These tensions, along with Toheis general dissatisfaction of the situation, were further displayed in 1971 when he created the Ki No Kenkyukai, with the purpose of promoting the development&cultivation of Ki inside aikido but outside the Aikikai "umbrella". The years of tension would finally cement Toheis descision to break away from the Aikikai and teach his own style of Aikido and continuing teaching the principles of Ki through his main organization. And so on the 1st of May 1974, Koichi Tohei officially left the Aikikai organisation to concentrate on his newly created Ki-aikido and Ki-society.
On the 15th of May, Tohei sent a letter in English and Japanese to the majority of the dojos both in Japan and abroad, explaining his reasons for the breakaway and his current plans involving Ki-aikido and the Ki-society. This breakup came as a shock to many aikidoka throughout the dojos of the world as well as Japan itself, as Tohei was well regarded by many instructors and students as the foremost sensei of Aikido after Ueshibas death. This in turn led to several dojos breaking with the Aikikai and joining Tohei in his new style. Toheis new objective, after his break, was to coordinate all the Dojos who joined him and incooperate them into the main organisation of Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido: "Aikido with Mind and Body Coordinated". This branch of aikido is still active today eventhough Koichi Tohei himself, by now 85 years old (Jan 2005), retired from the day-to-day business of the Ki-aikido section, and now concentrates solely on the Ki-society and further personal development of Ki.
Quotes
- Power of mind is infinite while brawn is limited.
- Countless people have attempted to define the absolute power of the world of nature. Some praise it as god, some call it the Buddha, others call it truth. Still others convert nature into a philosophy by which they attempt to sound its deepest truth. Such attempts to define the power of nature are no more than striving to escape its effects.
- All of the forces of science have been unable to conquer nature because it is too mystic, too vast, too mighty. It too intensely pervades everything around us. Like the fish that, though in the water, is unaware of the water, we are so thoroughly engulfed in the blessings of nature that we tend to forget its very existence.
- We would cease to exist if removed from the laws of nature. For instance, we would be totally unable to maintain stability on the surface of the earth without the force of gravity. Only those with their eyes open to the world of nature are capable of uncovering its truth. Everything springs form a sense of gratitude toward nature. Aikido, though praised a healthful system of self-defense techniques, would be nothing apart from the laws of the great universal. The martial way begins and ends with courtesy, itself an attitude of thankfulness to and reverence for nature. To be mistaken on this basic point is to make of the martial arts no more than weapons of injury and death.
- The very name Aikido indicates its dependence on the laws of nature, which we term Ki. Aikido means the way to harmony with Ki. That is to say, Aikido is a discipline to make the heart of nature our own heart, to understand love for all things, and to become one with nature. Techniques and physical strength have limits; the great way of the universal stretches to infinity.
External links
For more information about Ki Society, see the main article: Ki Society
|
