was a Japanese martial artist who founded the dojo

Yoseikan is the name given to a dojo built in November 1931 in Shizuoka, Japan. The Dojo The brother and friends of Master Minoru Mochizuki built this dojo for him while he was recovering from pleurisy and pulmonary tuberculosis. When the dojo was built ...

. He was a 10th

dan Dan or DAN may refer to: People * Dan (name), including a list of people with the name ** Dan (king), several kings of Denmark * Dan people, an ethnic group located in West Africa **Dan language, a Mande language spoken primarily in Côte d'Ivoir ...

in Aikido, 9th dan in

Jujutsu Jujutsu ( ; ja, link=no, 柔術 , ), also known as jiu-jitsu and ju-jitsu, is a family of Japanese martial arts and a system of close combat (unarmed or with a minor weapon) that can be used in a defensive or offensive manner to kill or subd ...

, 8th dan in Iaido, 8th dan in

Judo is an unarmed modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponica, "Judo") ...

, 8th dan in Kobudo, 5th dan in Kendo, 5th dan in Karate, and a 5th dan in Jojutsu. Mochizuki was one of the direct students of

founder Jigoro Kano, Aikido founder Morihei Ueshiba and

Gichin Funakoshi was a japanese martial artist who is regarded as the founder of Karate, Shotakan karate, perhaps the most widely known style of karate, and is known as a "father of modern karate". Following the teachings of Anko Itosu and Anko Asato,Funakoshi, ...

, founder of Shotokan Karate. Believing that the martial arts had become distorted by specialization into separate disciplines or transformed into sports, Mochizuki achievement was to assemble back the major techniques of the Japanese martial tradition into a single structure, as it was once practised. He oversaw the development of the system from his home in Shizuoka, Japan, where his dojo, the

, was often visited by martial arts practitioners from all over the world.

Early life

On April 7, 1907, Mochizuki was born in Shizuoka,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

. Mochizuki, began by training in kendo at the age of five, at his grandfather's dojo in Shizuoka.

Career

In 1925, Mochizuki began judo and joined the

Kodokan The , or ''Kōdōkan'' (講道館), is the headquarters of the worldwide judo community. The ''kōdōkan'' was founded in 1882 by Kanō Jigorō, the founder of judo, and is now an eight-story building in Tokyo. Etymology Literally, ''kō'' ...

where he became an outstanding competitor. Under the tutelage of Jigoro Kano, the founder of judo, as well as the renowned

Sanpo Toku was a Japanese judoka. Biography Toku was born in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan in 1887. He started training in judo, karate and kendo at elementary school, becoming a frequent tournament winner; in one of his first showings, he defeated 165 opp ...

, Mochizuki became the youngest member of the Kobudo Kenkyukai – an organization for the study, preservation and development of classical martial arts – established within the Kodokan. Here he practised among others Katori Shinto-ryu. In 1930, he was sent by Jigoro Kano to study aikijujutsu with Morihei Ueshiba. He was the uchideschi of Morihei Ueshiba at the Kobukan dojo for one year before opening his own dojo in Shizuoka City in 1931. He was awarded two Daito-Ryu scrolls by Ueshiba in June 1932 ("Goshinyo no te" and "Hiden ogi no koto"). He spent eight years in Mongolia where he was an active educator and entrepreneur of projects to improve communications and irrigation. His idea of combating

communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

with the application of the principles of "mutual welfare and prosperity" and of "the best use of energy" of Jigoro Kano contributed to the development of his region. His irrigation project was completed after the Second World War by the Chinese authorities. Mochizuki was the first to teach aikido in the West when he traveled in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

from 1951 to 1953 as a judo teacher. He was the 3rd Aikido Division head of the Kokusai Budoin-International Martial Arts Federation (IMAF Japan) after Ueshiba and Tomiki. He taught at the dojo of Shizuoka until nearly the end of the last millennium and spent the last years of his life in France with his son Hiroo.Minoru Mochizuki from Yoseikan Budo International Federation
Yoseikanbudo.com. Retrieved on 2012-01-27.

Personal

On May 30, 2003, Mochizuki died in Aix-en-Provence,

at the age of 96.

References

Sources

*Stanley Pranin, ed. Aikido masters: prewar students of Morihei Ueshiba. Tokyo: Aiki News. 1993.
publisher

External links

Yoseikan Hombu DojoYoseikan Budo IranWho is Minoru Mochizuki?
United States Yoseikan Budo Association {{DEFAULTSORT:Mochizuki, Minoru Martial arts school founders Japanese aikidoka Japanese jujutsuka Japanese male judoka Japanese male karateka Japanese kendoka Japanese jojutsuka 1907 births 2003 deaths 20th-century philanthropists