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The Japanese art of Aikido was developed by Morihei Ueshiba as a blend of his martial studies, philosophy, and religious beliefs. Aikido is often translated as "the Way of unifying (with) life energy" or as "the Way of harmonious spirit."Ueshiba's goal was to create an art that practitioners could use to defend themselves while protecting their attacker from injury.
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by Henry Ellis
In the past 50 years I have been most fortunate to not only meet but study with many of the great Budo Masters who have visited the UK and Europe. I would like to place my memories on record in the hope that they may one day be of interest to others in the Martial Arts.
(Read Article)
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by Henry Ellis I honestly believe that Kyu-Shin-Do has lost its true path in Britain and has become many things to many people. Kenshiro Abbe Sensei came to Britain in 1955 at the invitation of the London Judo Society ( LJS ). He considered the Judo that he saw to be too concerned with strength, also too physical and hard. It was his intent to introduce his theory of Kyu-Shin-Do to the British Judoka.
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by Henry Ellis
On May the 14th 2005 the committee organised what is considered to be the most successful Martial Arts Event in Britain to date the “ Kenshiro Abbe Jubilee Celebrations “ . It was the intention of the committee to establish the true history and legacies left in our care, not just for the students of today, but for the generations that follow in the future. ( Read Article) |
by Henry Ellis
The most popular theory of the origins of the coloured belt system is that it was originated by the father of Judo himself ` Jigoro Kano `. Of all the various theories I have read, I believe that this is probably the nearer to the true origin that we will ever get. ( Read Article) |
By Ben Westhoff
Sensei Elliot Freeman is surrounded by strip-club bouncers, who are sitting Indian-style in a semicircle around him. A smiling Micheal Ocello, the bouncers' boss, looks particularly Buddha-like. The men have gathered to learn how to disarm and demobilize the drunken, belligerent, sexually frustrated men they encounter on a nightly basis at clubs like Diamond Cabaret and PT's, without actually harming them. (Read Article) |
By Keith Morgan and Henry Ellis Z
A Man with too Many Friends
The following article by Martial Arts Illustrated correspondent Keith Morgan and Henry Ellis was originally published in the December 2006 issue of Martial Arts Illustrated. MAI and Keith Morgan have kindly consented to allow this article to be re-published on USA DOJO.COM to make the martial arts community more aware of the life of this great Budo master. Another reason for the publication of this article was the growing concerns of the few genuine surviving students of Abbe Sensei to the growing band of “Friends of Abbe Sensie“. Henry Ellis
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By Henry Ellis - The British Aikido Tree is a graphic illustration of all the early teachers from the arrival of Kenshiro Abbe Sensei to Britain in 1955. The Japanese teachers are placed in the order of their arrival in Britain, featuring from left to right with their title / rank at that time.
The Hut Dojo - - The Abbe School of Budo
As one researches the internet for information on Aikido and various teachers within the UK, It is common to see many claims to have trained at the Hut Dojo in the 1950/60's under the direction of Kenshiro Abbe Sensie, also claiming to have been graded in Aikido by Abbe Sensie or Mikito Nakazono Sensei.
If you see claims and a person is not on this Aikido tree or the original grading board which is in the "Photo Gallery" then you can rest assured that the individual has not received his dan grade at the Hut Dojo. (View Aikido Tree)
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By Henry Ellis
Henry Ellis, a direct student of the legendary Budo master Kenshiro Abbe Sense, from 1957 describes the great event at the Crystal Palace Sports Centre, London, to celebrate this great teacher and his arrival to Great Britain in 1955 and the subsequent inception of Aikido. Tribute website to Kenshiro Abbe Sensei at http://www.KenshiroAbbe.com . . .
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By Futao Motai
Thank you very much for inviting me to the
memorable occasion of the 50th anniversary
of the introduction of Aikido into the
United Kingdom. It is my highest honour to be with you to celebrate
50 years of Aikido in the UK. I am also thrilled to see so many
guests from the whole range of Budo disciplines, including of course
Aikido but also Judo, Kendo, Karate and so on. ( Read Article) |
By Henry Ellis
In 1957, I was studying Judo and Karate at the Abbe School of Budo
at the "Hut" in Hillingdon, Middlesex, a suburb of London.
My teacher was Ken Williams Sensei, and we were all students of
Kenshiro Abbe Sensei (8th dan in Judo, 6th dan in Aikido, and 5th
dan in Karate and Kendo). At that time, very few people in the United
Kingdom had heard of Aikido. ( Read Article) |
From Fighting Arts Magazine By Authur Lockyear
It was in 1957, I was studying
Judo and Karate at the Abbe School of Budo at the "Hut" in
Hillingdon, Middlesex. My Direct teacher was Mr. Ken Williams,
who was 3rd Dan (3rd degree black belt) Judo, and we were all
students of Kenshiro Abbe Sensei, 8th Dan Judo, 6th Dan
Aikido, 5th Dan Karate and 5th Dan Kendo. At this time no-one
in the United Kingdom had heard of Aikido. Abbe Sensei told Mr
Ken Williams that we had received a letter from O'Sensei Morihei
Ueshiba, stating that all instructors outside of Japan now
had permission to teach Aikido to anyone who wished to learn.
Mr Williams was his first student and he selected a hardcore
of Judo students to study Aikido - this is when I started. ( Read Article) |
By Henry Ellis
At
first sight of the above title I am sure that a lot of Aikidoist's
will be angry, they will assume that this is yet another attack
on the credibility of Aikido by other martial artist's. On this
occasion they are totally wrong, I have been a student of Aikido
since 1956, In those early days I first started Judo in 1955 at
the Kenshiro Abbe School of Budo, I studied Karate with Harada
Sensei and Kendo with Tomio O'Tani Sensei, so with my background
I feel that I have something to offer to this debate.
( Read Article) |
By Anita Wilson
I was born in West London in 1963, my father was very involved in the martial arts and a dan grade in Karate he was also a dealer in ancient Japanese arms and armour, although my father has an antiques shop in London's Bond Street, my home was more like a samurai warriors dressing room, with original suits of Japanese armour complete with very frighting face masks that would frighten the life out of my friends when ever they came to visit, there were also very many valuable swords yari and naginata spears. (Read Article) |
By Richard Ostrofsky - Time out of mind, martial arts1 have been practised by aristocrats and by thugs. Middle-class people, concerned with cost accounting, profit and loss, have had little use for them on the whole, preferring to hire others to do their fighting for them. But young males on the margins of law and the economy have cultivated fighting prowess as a form of skilled labour, as a pre-requisite of illegal enterprise, and as a route to selfesteem and status.
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The name, ai-ki-do, means roughly “the way of unified or harmonized spirit.” Unlike many other fighting arts, it is not a sport. In fact, one of the basic ideas of aikido is that competition has no place in combat. What the aikidoist never does is square off with an opponent for a fair contest to see who is the better man. Aikido works on a completely different paradigm: In a real fight, there is always one person who is attacking, and another who is being attacked. The theory of aikido is that the attacker (by definition) is over-reaching himself – going outside his proper sphere and putting himself off balance. Therefore, in committing an act of aggression, he is really defeating himself.
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By Richard Ostrofsky You can’t learn much about aikido just by reading. Many hours of practice and experiment are needed before the ideas presented here will have much meaning. On the other hand, almost from the outset, it may be helpful to have certain concepts in mind as you practice. Accordingly, what I attempt in this paper is to pull together the basic ideas and principles of this art to orient beginners during their first few years of training. I do not attempt to explain specific aikido techniques; such descriptions are readily available elsewhere. (Read Article)
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In their encounters with life, thinking people of all times and places have asked the same Big Questions, offering different answers in keeping with their received concepts, their cultures, and their life-situations. In modern English, we might phrase these questions so . . .
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A recent cover of Esquire magazine showed a powerful-looking man in two versions, standing next to himself. On the left, he was dressed in a white cowboy suit, with black boots, gun belt, eye-mask and ten-gallon hat: plainly that folk hero of my, and everybody else's childhood, the Lone Ranger. The incarnation on the right wore a white karate gi and a black belt. We were to see that the pop images of cowboy and martial arts expert derive from the same archetype, the same basic human possibility, manifested in two very different cultures.
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I have known Sensei Eastman for some 12 years
and during those years I have heard so many stories about both Sensei
Eastman and Sensei Ellis and their dedication to the early promotion
of UK Aikido, some of the history highlights their hard training and
appreciation of a true martial art, yet there are many amusing anecdotes.
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By Nigel Porter
On the 26th of September 1899 a
British engineer, called Barton Wright,
returned to England after an extended period of living and working in Japan.
He brought with him an eighteen year old Japanese man whom he had developed
a friendship with, and who he believed had something special to give to the
British people. The Japanese youth was Yukio Tani (1881 - 1950) and he was
an exponent of the Japanese art of Jujutsu.
( Read Article) |
