by Michael Wefers

The development of Aikido in Germany was greatly assisted by the German Judo Association (DJB), which founded an Aikido group in 1966 at the initiative of Mr. Gerd Wischnewski. He had returned to Germany as a 2nd Dan in Aikido after having stayed in Japan for three years and intently studied Aikido at the Hombu-Dojo in Tokyo from O-Sensei Morihei Ueshiba.

After the German Aikido group had hosted a variety of Japanese masters, it began, in 1978, to orient itself around and the clear, convincing teachings of Shimi7.ii Sensei. Later it became known that Shimizu Sensei was one of the teachers who had taught Gerd Wischnewski during his study at the Hombu-Dojo.

In courses and seminars regularly given by Shimizu Sensei several times a year throughout Germany, his way of Aikido has exerted a formative influence on the way of practising Aikido within the DJB. When in the beginning of the nineties the German Judo Association decided to concern itself with judo only, the National Aikido Association, Tendoryu Aikido Deutschland, Registered Society (TAD), which sees itself as an organizational platform for the Aikido of Shimizu Sensei, was founded. The TAD unites the national Aikido associations of the German states with their dojos practising the Aikido of Shimizu Sensei within them, and is in close contact with the Tendoryu-Hombu-Dojo, the Tendokan. The seminars with Shimizu Sensei, which last several weeks and take place twice a year in spring and summer, are central events of Tendoryu Aikido in Germany.