Hitohiro Saitō
Hitohiro Saitō ( Japanese 斎 藤 仁 弘 , Saitō Hitohiro , born February 12, 1957 ) is a Japanese Aikidō teacher.
Hitohiro Saitō supported his father Morihiro Saitō in the management of the Ibaraki -Dōjō in Iwama , Japan for many years . As a child he trained under Ueshiba Morihei Aikidō . As a young man, he spent some time in Osaka to learn the trade of a cook. It was there that he also began to be interested in Japanese calligraphy .
He later returned to Iwama and trained and taught daily at his father's side from then on. Since the death of Morihiro Saitō in 2002, he has taken over his duties. He attaches particular importance to the Budo aspect of Aikido, i.e. H. on the effectiveness and precision of the techniques that he teaches from the Kihon , the basic form. He sees the forms from movement, the ki no nagare , as an exercise for advanced learners, but not for beginners. Furthermore, Hitohiro Saitō is strongly based on the spiritual ideas of Ueshiba Morihei, who did not see Aikidō as a competitive sport, but as misogi waza , as a cleaning exercise. Furthermore, Hitohiro Saitō shares the conviction of his father, who always understood the staff and sword as an integral part of Aikidō, from whose knowledge the unarmed techniques ( taijutsu ) can be developed. As a result, daily training in Iwama basically consists of one hour of weapons and one hour of unarmed techniques.
However, disputes over the successor of Morihiro Saitō after his death led to massive conflicts both with former European and Japanese students of his father and with the Aikikai . Today other teachers have taken over the Ibaraki-Dōjō (including Isoyama, Shigemi Inagaki Shihan ), it is now under the official direction of Dōshū Moriteru Ueshiba . In Europe, Ulf Evenas and Paolo Corallini have founded a new association with affiliation to the Aikikai, which distances itself from Hitohiro Saitō. Hitohiro Saitō was forced to leave the Aikikai and founded a new association called Iwama Shinshin Aiki Shurenkai . He calls his aikidō Dento Iwama Ryū , which literally means “traditional Iwama style”. Hitohiro Saitō has opened his own dōjō in Iwama , the Tanrenkan. Aikidōka are very welcome there as house students ( Uchi-Deshi ). The prerequisite is one year of training in Iwama Ryū and a letter of recommendation from a teacher.
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| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Saitō, Hitohiro |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 斎 藤 仁 弘 (Japanese) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Japanese aikido teacher |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 12, 1957 |