Aikido is commonly understood to mean ai (harmony); ki (spirit, life force, breath); do (a path or way). However, the founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba, has written that he came to understand that ai (harmony) really means love and that the word Aikido, the way of harmony, is really Aikido, the way of love. To him, the difference was that, while in the old days martial artists saw aiki as an effective martial art technique, he came to see it as a way “to establish world peace, to nourish and protect all things.”

 

In the Aikido Peace Education Center, Aikido is a practice filled with joyful, natural movement that helps cultivate our sense of care for all of life