To understand the course of the aikido, it is essential to seize the path of his founder, considered rightly as one of the great Masters of contemporary martial arts; Morihei UESHIBA (O' Sensei) was born in 1883 in Tanabe, small locality of the west of Japan. Nervous child and of delicate constitution, he will be encouraged as of youth the practice of the sumo and swimming in order to reinforce his body structure. In his 19 years old, he settles in Tokyo and begins the practice of judo, jujitsu and kenjutsu (martial arts being practiced with a wood sword). A few years after, he is implied in the development of a colony in the north of Japan and is initiated with the practice of Daito Ryu, martial arts determining in the technical design of the aikido. In the Twenties, he will open a school of martial arts, the Ueshiba Academy from which the reputation will gradually start to expand. The practice then is intense, the first followers are in hillock with the multiple provocations on behalf of not very advisable individuals and of practitionners of other forms of combat which do not agree on the existence of a new martial art.

Because he becomes a committed religious practitioner, the spiritual dimension gradually takes an increasingly significant part in the practice of the founder. He also understands that the concept of victory is random, that soon or later, one gains and one loses and that counting on this victory does not lead to the achievement of oneself. In the course of the years, aikido, of immediate technical efficiency is transformed into fluid and harmonious movement where " atemis " (knocks carried in various vulnerable points of the body) are not more than suggested. Aikido spread worldwide where it is, at present, practised by millions of followers of any ages and both sexes.