It was totally over the head for a layman like me to understand the teaching by the Aikido Founder, Morihei Ueshiba. When I came to an impasse in the Waza of Aikido and was keenly aware of my powerlessness, I was at the edge to decide to leave this martial art or stick with it as a hobby. I gave serious thought to the way before getting out of the hole in the situation. I opened my eyes that the traditional physical exercise was not always the answer, so I changed my policy to focus my eyes on the mental world.

At the time, the founder’s saying that caught my eyes was the one word "Aiki is Love". I thought that this word had infinite greatness and depth. And then I thought that if I could achieve a deep understanding of this, I could make the Waza of Aikido touch the secret. I kept only thinking of how I could embody the "Waza of Love" during daily Waza exercises. I tried to understand the founder’s saying with my heart in a blind way, and I felt that in spite of the differences in expression, the founder’s entire saying means the spirit of universal humanity (Banyu Aigo no Seishin).

The Love in martial arts means that it takes the fight out of the enemy. Being in one with the enemy, the Waza takes the fight out of it. Being in one with the enemy, we need to get rid of the desire to defeat it using the Waza physically. It means that the connection with the other party. Connecting to them, we need to relax our physical brute force. After coming to the conclusion, I concentrated on that point in exercise. After a period of years, the "Waza of Love" that was totally unexpected in the traditional exercise was brought into being.

The Waza of "Kokyu Ryoku" (breath power) created by Manseikan Aikido is it. It is not possible to achieve the Real Aikido without seeking the mental world taught by the patriarch. I assume that this mental Waza with fresh-spirit united could be the mark of a person in a dead end.

Manseikan Aikido founder
Kanshu Sunadomari