Aikido Heritage

Aiki Kai Australia is the mainstream organisation for Aikido in Australia and it represents Australia at the International Aikido Federation in Japan. Aiki Kai Australia was founded by Sugano Shihan, who came to Australia to teach Aikido in 1965, and it has a presence in all the capital cities and in many regional cities and towns.

Sugano Shihan was a student of the founder of Aikido Morihei Ueshiba (O’Sensei). The Ueshiba family remain directly involved in the management and operation of Aikido globally. The current leader of the way (referred to as Doshu) is O’Sensei’s grandson Moriteru Ueshiba.

After Sugano Shihan passed away in 2010 the leadership of Aiki Kai was taken up by three Australian Shihans and long time students of Sugano: Tony Smibert Shihan, 7th Dan, Hanan Janiv Shihan, 7th Dan and Robert Botterill Shihan, 7th Dan. Sugano Shihan left a substantial legacy of Aikido in Australia and around the globe that our senior instructors are maintaining and passing on to new students. In Canberra we are very fortunate to have Hanan Janiv Shihan as our senior instructor.

Aiki Kai Australia conducts both regional and national training events. The regional events are called Technical Teaching Committee (TTC) weekends and are conducted by a senior Aiki Kai instructor. In Canberra we aim to have one of these each year. We also travel as a group to Sydney to attend their TTC weekends.

The national training events (Summer School in January, Winter School in July) are week-long events. These are taught by our three Shihans, by other senior Aiki Kai instructors and by guest instructors from overseas. These national events give us the opportunity to train under other senior instructors and to train with our many fellow members of Aiki Kai.