Table of Contents

• Reflection of the Week:

  • Introduction

  • From Sickness to Strength: A Lesson for Life

  • Meeting Ueshiba Sensei: The Secret of Relaxation

  • Tested on the Battlefield: Finding Your Center Und …

  • Tempu Nakamura Sensei - Mind Leads Body

  • Taking Aikido to the World

  • A Fork in the Road

  • Timeline of Tohei Sensei’s Life

  • Conclusion: What He Left Behind

Reflection of the Week:

Introduction

Koichi Tohei Sensei (1920 – 2011) wasn't just any student of the Founder of Aikido Moriehi Ueshiba Sensei, often referred to as O-Sensei. He was the Chief Instructor at the main Aikido headquarters (the Aikikai Hombu Dojo) and was the first person ever to receive a 10th Dan rank directly from Ueshiba Sensei with an official certificate. 

Tohei Sensei’s real contribution was his ability to explain things clearly. Ueshiba Sensei was deeply spiritual and often explained his art in mystical terms that his students couldn't really understand. He could do incredible things, but he couldn't always explain how he did them so his students could understand. Tohei Sensei had the insight to look past Ueshiba Sensei's confusing words and analyze what he was actually doing. He broke down Ueshiba Sensei’s amazing power into simple, testable principles and built a logical system for teaching them. He was the bridge between Ueshiba Sensei's genius and the regular person. 

From Sickness to Strength: A Lesson for Life

Tohei Sensei was born 1920. As a child he was often sick. In order to build his health his father insisted he train Judo, which he did vigorously. While attending Keio University he took a very hard Judo throw and developed pleurisy, a severe lung infection. He had to leave school for a year to recover and his doctors told him he could never train hard again or he would risk death. 

While he was recovering at home in Tochigi Prefecture, Tohei Sensei read voraciously including Saikontan and a book his sister gave him, “Watashi no Sensei”. Saikontan is a book of aphorisms describing the “Triple Sage” who synthesizes the teachings from Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism [Look for a future article on this topic!]. "Watashi no Sensei," is a biography of Yamaoka Tesshu, a famous Samurai during the end of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the start of the Meiji Restoration. These books inspired him to regain both his physical, but more importantly internal mental/spiritual, strength and become a "Triple Sage" himself. Even more, he didn’t just want to know about it, he wanted to be able to do it, to be it, and be able to show others how to do it themselves. 

To that end, Tohei Sensei went to the Ichikukai dojo to train misogi in the tradition of Yamaoka Tesshu. The instructors there would not let him train given his pleurisy, but they suggested he train in Zen. After training Zen intensively for some time, he was allowed to train misogi at Ichikukai. Through this process he learned how to train as if his life depended on it, giving one hundred percent in every moment. If you try to rely on your physical strength while doing misogi, you will quickly exhaust your voice and body. You have to let that idea of strength go in order to survive. 

When he went back to the doctors, they were stunned to find the pleurisy was completely gone. This experience was a revelation. It was personal, undeniable proof that the mind (心 kokoro) and a person's life energy (氣 ki) could heal the body in a way that muscle power alone could not. The body-only approach had nearly killed him; the Bodymind approach had saved him. 

Meeting Ueshiba Sensei: The Secret of Relaxation

After overcoming his illness, Tohei Sensei went back to Judo, but it no longer held his interest. He now knew he needed an art that trained not just the body but also the mind, and Judo's focus on strength wasn't it. Around 1940, a friend suggested he meet a teacher with unbelievable power: Morihei Ueshiba Sensei. 

On his first visit to the dojo, Ueshiba Sensei wasn't there, and another student tried to show him an Aikido technique that was so painful Tohei Sensei punched him to get away. Thinking this new art was a waste of time, he was about to leave when Ueshiba Sensei walked in.

Ueshiba Sensei started demonstrating, easily throwing students around. Tohei Sensei thought it looked fake, so Ueshiba Sensei invited him to attack. Having trained Judo, Tohei Sensei moved in to grab the old man and was instantly thrown so smoothly he had no idea what had just happened. In that moment, he had a huge realization. Ueshiba Sensei wasn't using muscle at all. He was completely relaxed. Tohei Sensei understood immediately that this total relaxation was the source of his incredible power. He signed up on the spot.

His progress in Aikido was incredibly fast because he was still doing his Zen and misogi training. He would often show up to the dojo exhausted from his other training. With no physical strength left to rely on, he made a key discovery. The same students who could usually throw him before, now couldn't move him an inch, while he could throw them with ease. This was the proof of what he’d seen in Ueshiba Sensei. By letting go of muscle and focusing on relaxation, his Aikido became far more powerful. While other students were trying to copy the physical movements, Tohei Sensei was focused on developing the internal state of being that made the movements work. He understood from day one that he was learning about ki, not just techniques. Because of this unique focus Ueshiba Sensei made him a teacher in six-months, even though he didn't even have an official rank yet.

Tested on the Battlefield: Finding Your Center Under Fire

If his illness and training in Zen, misogi, and Aikido taught Tohei Sensei to believe in the power of the mind, World War II was the real crucible where he learned to make it work under pressure. In 1942, Tohei Sensei was drafted into the Japanese Army and by 1944, he was leading a platoon on the front lines in China.

It was there, with bullets flying, that his training became a tool for survival. He realized that unlike in his training, a moment of lost focus in a real battle could get you killed. The idea of keeping your mind centered became very real. He learned firsthand the importance of staying calm by keeping his mind focused in his "one point in the lower abdomen" (臍下の一点 seika no itten).

This wasn't just a mental trick; it had real-world results. He found that if he couldn't calm his mind, it often meant an enemy was hiding nearby, a feeling that saved his platoon more than once. He taught his men the same principles of extending ki and staying calm. His calm leadership worked. In a testament to how effective these principles are, he never lost a single man under his command during the entire war.

The war also gave birth to another part of his teaching: Kiatsu. With few doctors around, Tohei Sensei started treating his men's injuries and illnesses by pressing his fingertips into them and extending ki, creating the healing art he would formalize later. The battlefield proved that his principles of "Keep One Point" and "Relax Completely" weren't just for the dojo, they were keys to survival. This experience gave his teaching an unshakable, practical authority. He had proven that Bodymind Oneness worked, not just on the mat, but in life and death situations.

Tempu Nakamura Sensei - Mind Leads Body

When he returned to Japan in 1946, Tohei Sensei began training again with Ueshiba Sensei. At the same time, he started studying with another teacher, Tempu Nakamura Sensei, who had introduced yoga to Japan and founded his own discipline called Shinshin Toitsu Do (The Way of Realizing Bodymind Oneness).

Nakamura's teaching had a huge impact on Tohei Sensei. While Ueshiba Sensei was the perfect example of Bodymind Oneness, his explanations were often spiritual and confusing. Tempu Sensei, on the other hand, taught ideas like "mind moves body" in a clear, logical, and systematic way that anyone could understand. Studying with both men at once, Tohei Sensei had a breakthrough. He realized that Nakamura's clear, logical principles were the very things that explained Ueshiba Sensei's seemingly magical power. He connected the dots. He took the amazing things Ueshiba Sensei did and combined them with the clear way Nakamura explained them. The result was the first-ever structured, step-by-step system for teaching Aikido.

This was Tohei Sensei's genius. He didn't change Ueshiba Sensei's art; he just made it understandable. He took the "magic" and turned it into a practical art that could be taught, tested, and learned by anyone. He essentially wrote the missing instruction manual for Aikido.

Taking Aikido to the World

In 1953, Ueshiba Sensei gave Tohei Sensei a huge responsibility: to introduce Aikido to the West. His first stop was Hawaii, and this trip would be key to perfecting his teaching method. 

People were skeptical. When he arrived in Hawaii, they were surprised by how small he was, a few inches over five feet tall. They asked him, "Sensei, you are so small! Can you really do martial arts?". Tohei Sensei knew talking wouldn't convince them. He told them to gather ten of the strongest men they could find, which included high-ranking martial artists and pro wrestlers who weighed over 220 lbs. He then proceeded to throw and pin all of them, one by one, with no trouble. His doubters became his first students on the spot. 

This happened again and again. He faced many challengers who were not cooperating like students in a dojo; they were actively trying to prove him wrong. It was during these real-world tests against bigger, stronger opponents that Tohei Sensei realized that just doing the physical techniques wasn't always enough. To win consistently, he had to rely completely on using Ki. 

This, plus the fact that Western students asked a lot of questions and wanted to know why things worked, forced him to make his teaching system even clearer and more logical. He needed a system that worked for anyone, no matter their size or background.

Between 1953 and 1971, he traveled to the U.S. many times, building a large network of dojos and training America's first generation of Aikido instructors. He became the international face of Aikido, and his books, published in English, helped spread the art even further. His experience teaching around the world wasn't just about spreading Aikido; it was about perfecting a universal way to teach it.

A Fork in the Road

Tohei Sensei was hugely important to the main Aikido organization, the Aikikai. He was the Chief Instructor and was awarded the 10th Dan by Ueshiba Sensei shortly before he passed away in 1969. But after Ueshiba Sensei passed away a major disagreement developed between Tohei Sensei and the new leader, Ueshiba Sensei's son Kisshomaru Ueshiba Sensei. 

The problem wasn't personal; it was a fundamental difference in how they believed Aikido should be taught. Tohei Sensei was convinced that you had to explicitly teach Ki principles to do Aikido. He argued that without understanding the Oneness of Bodymind, the techniques were just empty movements.

The Aikikai leadership disagreed. Their view was that it is not necessary to train Ki; Ki will come of itself while practicing Aikido. The senior instructors at the main dojo didn't want Tohei Sensei teaching a Ki specific curriculum there. 

Worried that the core principles of Aikido would be lost, Tohei Sensei founded the Ki Society in 1971, with an agreement that he would only teach the principles of Ki, not Aikido techniques. But the tension continued.

Finally, on May 1, 1974, Tohei Sensei resigned from the Aikikai and officially founded Shinshhin Toitsu Aikido. This new path was created to teach Aikido techniques as a direct expression of his Ki principles. For him, it wasn't about splitting the art; it was about preserving its heart and ensuring that the clear, systematic method for understanding Aikido would not be forgotten.

Timeline of Tohei Sensei’s Life

Conclusion: What He Left Behind

Koichi Tohei Sensei passed away in 2011 at the age of 91. He left behind a profound legacy. He was the pioneer who brought Aikido to the rest of the world. He was the innovator who created a clear, logical system for understanding its deepest secrets. Most of all, he was the great teacher who took the genius of Morihei Ueshiba Sensei and turned it into a practical path that anyone can follow to develop their full potential.

His own life is the best proof of his teachings. He went from being a sickly child to a powerful martial artist, tested his principles on the battlefield, and spent his life sharing what he learned with the world.

As students of Shinshin Toitsu Aikido, we are the direct heirs of his life's work. Every time we step on the mat and try to Keep One Point, Relax Completely, Keep Weight Underside, and Extend Ki, we are honoring his journey and continuing his mission, which is now led by his son and successor, Shinichi Tohei Sensei. 

Tohei Sensei said the ultimate purpose of our training is "To unify mind and body and become one with the Universe.” By living his life the way he did, he didn't just tell us how to do it, he showed us it was possible.

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I look forward to seeing you on the mat (and in daily life) soon!