Aikido is the harmony of the body, mind, and spirit. This martial art utilizes an opponent's momentum to cause imbalance resulting in the opponent being rendered harmless. Aikido was developed by O-Sensei Morihei Ueshiba (1883 - 1969) Aikido is a relatively young martial art; it is less than one hundred years old. Aikido is a defensive martial art, using an opponents momentum against him or her self. Sensei Katsumi Niikura (Sensei) 1955 : Age 12: began to study karate and judo. At the time, karate was not well thought of; many people in Japan associated it with organized crime and criminal classes ( much the same perception that the same people in America of boxing today), so Niikura-san studied Karatedo 'on the sly', without his parents knowledge. In the late '50s, he won a Junior Championship at the prefecture level ( equivalent to our state level), and a neighbor, reading of it in the paper, came over to congratulate his father. That is how his father found out that Niikurasan was studying karatedo. 1961 : He graduated from high school and began to study Karatedo. At the same time he was increasing the intensity of his physical training, Niikura began to seek a balance in his life by pursuing restful, mental training in the form of ikebana, the Japanese style of flower arranging. As members of the warrior class of Japan had for hundreds of years, he found that ikebana added harmony to his life and an inner peace that allowed him to continue to excel to greater plateaus ...