Kenji Shimizu was borne in the year 1940 in Fukuoka-ken Kahogunhonami-machi Tendo in Japan. With 13 years he started practicing Judo and reached the 4^th dan Judo by the Kodokan after 10 years. 1962 he graduated from the Meiji University.

In the year 1963 he started with Aikido as one of the last Uchi-Deshi (personal student) of the founder of Aikido, O-Sensei Morihei Ueshiba, and was later graduated up to the 8^th dan.

After the death of O-Sensei in 1969 Shimizu Sensei founded the independent Shimizu Dojo in Tokyo and changed the name of his Dojo to Tendokan six years later.

Only three years later, in 1978, he hold the first seminars in the former West-Germany, and yearly seminars in Slovenia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and France and other countries followed.

In the year 1982 the Tendokan in Sangenjaya in Tokyo became the main Dojo of Tendoryu Aikido.

12 years later, in 1994, the Tendoryu Aikido Federation Germany (tad) was founded officially, and at the occasion of the 25^th anniversary of the foundation a celebration and an Aikido demonstration took place at the famous Meiji Memory Hall in Tokyo.

In 2002 Shimizu Sensei received an award by the Japanese Foreign Minister for his various international cultural activities.

Tendoryu Aikido (ten: heaven, do: way, ryu: school) is characterized by large clear movements and convinces by naturalness and a harmonious flow of actions.