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History of aikido
· Origins (from old style jujitsu to aikido/judo)
· Sokaku Takeda and Morihei Ueshiba
· Morihei Ueshiba and Kenji Tomiki
· Jigoro Kano and Kenji Tomiki
· The development of aikido competition
In January 1928 Tomiki received his 5th dan in judo. In May 1929 he represented Miyage prefecture in a national judo competition held in the presence of the Emperor. He got through to the last 12 but sustained a rib injury and after the competition withdrew from active judo competition with the intention of becoming an instructor.
In the spring of 1931 he became a teacher at Kakunodate Junior High School in his hometown in Akita prefecture. During the holidays he visited Morihei Ueshiba and studied aikibudo enthusiastically.
In March 1936 he took up a post as a lecturer at the Daido Institute in Manchukuo. Just before he left he and his friend Masami Takasaki (who became a 9th dan later) visited Jigoro Kano at his office in Kodokan. During this visit Jigoro Kano encouraged Tomiki saying, "The techniques you have been studying with Ueshiba are indispensable. Everybody should practise these jujitsu techniques this way. The difficult problem is how to achieve this."
At the time Kano was preserving the excellent techniques of old style jujitsu that were gradually being forgotten and sent two of his pupils to learn aikibudo. Tomiki, who was studying hard with Ueshiba, was very impressed by Kano's words and boldly replied, "With your judo principles I think that there is nothing that cannot be accomplished" and set out with a new determination.
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