Aikido for Life

Blue Snake Books, 1993. 2nd ed. Softcover. Good. 5x0x8. Signed by Author. Inscribed "To Tyler Nicholson Gaku Homma". Signed copies rarely offered. A teacher's guide for instructing beginners of Aikido--this book appeals to the new beginner and experienced student alike. Nippon Kan was established in 1980 as a center for Denver residents to experience Japanese culture. The center has since served more than 6,000 studetns wit hits variety of classes, but its core is still Aikido. Thousands of students have benfitted from Gaku Homma's form of dynamic Aikido.Gaku Homma, founder and chief instructor of Nippon Kan, is the author of Aikido Sketch Diary, The Folk Art of Japanese Country Cooking, and Children and the Martial Arts: An Aikido Point of View. He has practiced under Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido, as well as other high-ranking instructors. Homma, whose father was a Shinto priest and an officer in the Japanese Imperial Army during the war, was born in Akita Prefecture. According to Homma, at the age of 14, he was sent by his father to train in Iwama under aikido founder Ueshiba Morihei. Homma also says that he trained as an uchi deshi in Iwama and at the Aikikai Hombu Dojo in Tokyo, under the founder and under Saito Morihiro in the late 1960s. Along with Hideo Hirasawa, Homma is one of a number of aikidoka who claim to be the last uchi deshi to have been trained directly by Ueshiba Morihei.