Aikido: changing roles in paired practice

Tori and uke

Aikikai calls the person applying a technique tori and the person receiving it uke. Partners change roles. Entering, turning, changes of balance and receiving a technique work together, with the receiving partner taking an active part in the practice.

Coordinating a corner drop

Nippon Budokan’s guide illustrates this through gyaku-hanmi katate-dori sumi-otoshi, a corner drop from a single-wrist grasp. The yellow-clad uke begins by grasping the white-clad tori’s wrist. Tori moves diagonally and extends the arm, then controls uke’s elbow; further movement breaks uke’s balance towards a rear corner. Uke responds by moving the nearer foot back, lowering a knee and rolling backwards. Receiving is an active part of this coordinated example, not simply falling rigidly. Other techniques use different movements.

Set practice develops a technique with an agreed starting action; an embu is a demonstration for an audience. Aikikai presents its training as non-competitive. The Japan Aikido Association describes Tomiki’s system as combining kata, or set forms, with randori, in which partners have greater freedom to act and resist. Its system also includes regulated competition.

Ueshiba studied martial traditions including Daitō-ryū jūjutsu, alongside spiritual practice associated with Ōmoto. He opened the Ueshiba Juku in Ayabe in 1920, moved his activity to Tokyo in 1927 and established the Kōbukan in 1931. This was a modern development through study and teaching rather than an unchanged system inherited intact from antiquity.

Naming and postwar organisations

The Aikikai chronology records an outdoor dojo at Iwama in 1941, the Aiki Shrine in 1943 and a training dojo in 1945—different facilities with different dates. It places the name aikido in 1942, reorganisation in 1948, regular headquarters practice in 1949 and a public demonstration in 1955. Kisshomaru succeeded Morihei after his death in 1969; domestic and international federations extended institutional links in 1976. Another organisational path was Yoshinkan, founded in 1955 by Ueshiba’s pupil Gozo Shioda.

Overseas teaching and Tōhei’s lineage

Overseas teaching and organisational divergence developed alongside this history. Kōichi Tōhei taught in Hawaiʻi from 1953 and later served as Aikikai’s chief instructor. He established the Ki Society in 1971, left Aikikai in 1974 and founded Shinshin Tōitsu Aikido. His organisation attributes the separation to differences with Kisshomaru over their understanding of teaching. Its account describes one lineage, whose explanation of ki is not shared by every aikido organisation.

The Japan Aikido Association describes a progression from individual footwork and breakfall practice to paired exercises, set techniques and freer practice. Its randori training adds resistance before match practice. Aikikai instead organises paired training without victory contests. The organisations therefore differ in how partners practise and test techniques.