Morihei Ueshiba - The Last Video (1969)

Morihei Ueshiba O-sensei in action on the mats of the Aikikai Hombu Dojo in Tokyo. The footage in question was taken at the beginning of 1969. Morihei Ueshiba took his last class on March 10, 1969, after which he was diagnosed with cancer of the liver and hospitalised. He died shortly after on April 26, 1969. Although terminally ill with cancer, at eighty-five years of age he showed more physicality in his performance than anyone could expect in the case. Even in his last public demonstration, people fell like skittles in a muffled, almost magical atmosphere. For quality Budo books visit: Almost all the merit and uniqueness of Aikido lies in the final part of Morihei Ueshiba’s life, in the incomprehensible union of martial performance and spiritual wisdom, where one affects the other and vice versa. His direct teaching has little or nothing technical in a martial sense. One percent of it, maybe. The rest is pressing enthusiastic spiritual guidance. His teaching is almost entirely allusive. It is quite clear that martial technicalism is pushed into the background to make way for a revolutionary and disruptive sense of Budo that feeds on other things. These things, generally, did not please his successors, and there was a way, even though in formal deference, of manifesting that dissent: the often-spoken mention that Morihei Ueshiba was a kami, something unattainable. Studying Bannen Aikido, the Aikido of recent years, requires a reversal of approach, shifting the focus of attention from techniques and their details, to something that is also technical, which is never talked about on the Aikido mats. In the very word Aiki is contained the nourishing milk of Aikido, that which brings together the old and the young, the expert and the beginner, stitching together the opposites. Subscribe to The Ran Network’s channel: