Teacher Lineage

Teachers Who Have Influenced Two Cranes Aikido
Two Cranes Aikido follows the path of the Shingu lineage, but we are influenced by significant teachers from other aikido traditions as well. Below is a list of the teachers who have had a primary influence on my Aikido development.

The Beginning of Aikido in Shingu
I am often asked, "What is the Shingu lineage?" Shingu is a town near the birthplace of Morihei Ueshiba, and a gateway for pilgrims to the revered Kumano Hongu Grand Shrine. In 1928, Omotokyo followers, hearing of
O Sensei's special qualities as a spiritual and martial master, invited him to the town of Shingu to teach. Each time he came, he would visit the shrine. Hikitsuchi Sensei was a young man at the time and began to study with
O Sensei before the war. After the war, he provided a small space for training on his family property, which was then expanded into the Aikido Kumano Juku dojo.

The Shingu lineage began with O Sensei teaching Hikitsuchi Sensei, Anno Sensei, Yanase Sensei and Tojima Sensei and other instructors. These teachers taught Mary Heiny, Tom Read, Linda Holiday and Jack Wada Senseis, who brought the teachings to U.S. soil. Kimberly Richardson Sensei has had the great fortune to be taught by all of these teachers.

Michio Hikitsuchi Sensei 10th Dan
Hikitsuchi Sensei was born near Shingu, Japan, in 1923. At the age of nine, he began his martial arts training and started studying with O Sensei when he was 14. At that time, there was an age requirement for studying budo with O Sensei, but they made an exception for the young Hikitsuchi. After years of separation during the war, they came upon each other again near the city of Tanabe and renewed their acquaintance. Hikitsuchi Sensei directed the Kumano Juke Dojo in Shingu, Japan, and he received his 10th Dan in 1969, three months before O Sensei passed away.

Motomichi Anno Sensei 8th Dan
Anno Sensei has devoted himself to O Sensei's teachings of harmony and love through budo. A direct student of O Sensei, Motomichi Anno Sensei was born in 1931. He began Aikido training in 1954 and was promoted to 8th Dan in 1978. Anno Sensei is the Chief Instructor of the Kumano Juku in Shingu and the Chief Instructor of Matsubara Dojo in Kumano City, Japan. In 2008, the Japan Martial Arts Association selected Anno Sensei to receive the Martial Arts Distinguished Service Award, acknowledging 55 years of dedicated training, and his service to the art as an instructor and a profound communicator of O Sensei's teachings. Motomichi Anno Sensei visited Two Cranes Aikido in the spring of 2000 and again in 2002. His teachings of the heart have had a deep impact on the students he taught in the United States.

Mary Heiny Sensei 6th Dan
Heiny Sensei was my first teacher. For more than 41 years, Heiny Sensei has followed a path of physical and spiritual inspiration as a student and instructor of Aikido. After studying at Hombu Dojo from 1968 to 1973 with O Sensei's direct students and with Hikitsuchi Sensei in Shingu, Heiny Sensei returned to the United States and taught at the University of California in Santa Cruz. In 1976, she opened The Seattle School of Aikido. After nine years, she turned the dojo over to her students and moved to Canada to teach. She relocated to the states in 2001 and presently leads workshops in Canada, the U.S. and Europe. Heiny Sensei brings to her seminars not only her dynamic teaching, but also her extensive experience and study of Japanese culture, language, Shinto and Buddhist philosophies. Her teachings communicate O Sensei's desire that we use Aikido to become empowered as creative and compassionate beings..

Tom Read Sensei
Read Sensei began his Aikido study in 1969 after a concentrated period of study in traditional karate. Drawn to Aikido as a way to deepen his study of Zen meditation, he eventually moved to Japan where he experienced a rigorous tutelage under Masters Hikitsuchi,Yanase and Tojima Senseis and other instructors of the Kumano Juku Dojo.

After returning from Japan, Read Sensei opened Northcoast Aikido in Arcata, CA in October of 1977 (with formal sanction from Hikitsuchi Sensei), to provide an environment dedicated to study of the art of Aikido. He is also the founder of Aikibojitsu, a system of staff work that is spiritually in keeping with the misogi weapons work done by O Sensei and Hikitsuchi Sensei.  Hikitsuchi Sensei, Read Sensei's teacher, received a separate certification in bojitsu from the founder of aikido and he in turn did the same thing for Read Sensei. Both at Northcoast Aikido and in seminars nationwide, Read Sensei teaches a complete philosophical system of power through nonresistance.

In 1986, I spent a year of concentrated practice with Read Sensei as uchi deshi and, at the end of that time, traveled with him to Japan for a month of intensive study and pilgrimage. He has conducted yearly seminars at TCA since 1995.

Beyond the Shingu Lineage: Other Influential Teachers of Two Cranes Aikido

Hiroshi Ikeda Shihan 7th Dan
Ikeda Sensei is the founder and chief instructor of Boulder Aikikai, Inc., a nonprofit school of Aikido in Boulder, Colorado. He currently holds the rank of 7th Dan through Mitsugi Saotome Shihan and the Aikido World Federation (Hombu Dojo). Ikeda Sensei began his study of Aikido in 1968, as a college student at Kokugakuin University in Tokyo. In 1978, he followed Saotome Sensei to Sarasota, Florida. In 1980, he moved to Boulder to establish Boulder Aikikai, an associate of Saotome Sensei's Aikido Schools of Ueshiba.

Ikeda Sensei travels extensively around the world offering Aikido instruction. He is the Founder of the Bridge Seminars in which he unites teachers and students of diverse martial backgrounds to share exploration and study. I was fortunate to meet Sensei in 1981 and spent five months training with him in what was then a high school gym dojo in Boulder, Colorado. He has continued to guide me in my training to the present.

Terry Dobson
Terry Dobson (1937-1992) was a true American pioneer, Aikido teacher and writer. Dobson is one of the few Western aikido practitioners who studied directly under O Sensei. During a visit to Tokyo, Dobson witnessed a demonstration of what was then a little-known martial art on an American military base in Yokohama. He entered the Aikikai Hombu Dojo in 1964 and trained as uchi deshi until Master Ueshiba's death in 1969. In 1970, Dobson returned to the U.S. where he gave seminars around the country and co-founded Bond Street Dojo in New York City and Vermont Aikido in Burlington, Vermont. Terry continued to teach Aikido as a visiting sensei until his death on August 2, 1992. In 1990, Dobson Sensei came to Seattle to teach a series of workshops.

I had a life-changing experience traveling down the West Coast with Dobson Sensei in 1990, participating in seminars and lecture demonstrations that he lead in Seattle, WA, Eugene and Ashland, OR and Arcata, CA, finishing our trek in San Francisco. From the moment I met him, he advised me to open my heart and teach my students to do the same. Several months before he died, I received this card in the mail

Dear Kimberly,
Rumi says: The clear bead at the center changes everything. There are no edges to my loving now. I've heard it said- there's a window that opens from one mind to another. But if there's no wall, there's no need for fitting the window, or the latch. Here's to knowing that the wall between us is crumbling all the time. My heart is with you. My admiration, my gratitude. Love, Terry