Takeda Sokaku and Hisa Takuma
in Osaka 1939
Takumakai is an organization established in order to practice the traditional
Japanese martial arts, Daito-ryu Aiki Jujutsu, as was founded by the students
of Hisa Takuma and also by the students of Nakatsu Heizaburo. The former
holded a Menkyo Kaiden from Takeda Sokaku, and the latter Daitoryu from
Takeda Sokaku together with Hisa.
When Hisa Takuma was working for the Osaka Asahi Newspaper company, he
learned Daito-ryu Aiki Jujutsu first from Ueshiba Morihei, and then later
from Takeda Sokaku. He recieved a Menkyo Kaiden (the highest attainable
rank) from Takeda Sokaku on March 26, 1939. He was the only person among
Sokaku's students that received the Menkyo Kaiden. After that, in 1959,
Hisa Takuma established Kansai Aikido Club, to proliferate the Daito-ryu
style. With Hisa Takuma's move to Tokyo in 1968, the Kansai Aikido Club
was closed down. His students, however, continued training in various parts
of the Kansai region and convened every year for join training sessions.
At one of the joint summer training sessions, on August 24, 1975, Chiba
Tsugutaka from Awa Ikeda proposed that Hisa Takuma's name be used to formally
designate the Takumakai.
As a result of the formalization of the group,the joint training sessions
increased in size and the Takumakai was established as a Kobudo (classical
martial way) organization. In the beginning, there were only seven branches.
The largest increase came about after Hisa Takuma passed away. His death
left students with a sense of urgency to continue this teachings, which
strengthened the spirit of unity in the Takumakai, and led its members
to take a more active role, resulting in an increase in the membership
and an increase in the number of dojo. As of January 1997, there are 40
branches and dokokai(study groups) in Japan, America, and Finland.
Daito-ryu Aiki Jujutsu is a traditional Japanese martial art which is historically
said to be about one thousand years old. However, it was only opened to
the public for the first time by Takeda Sokaku (1860-1943) one hundred
years ago. All the people who had the opportunity to witness Sokaku's techniques
were struck with wonder at his high level. All types of jujutsu martial
arts utilize the opponent's power. Sokaku's art was the same in this respect,
except that in addition to it, Sokaku utilized an additional power. He
called it "Aiki".
Takeda Sokaku spent the last part of his life teaching Hisa Takuma at the
Osaka Asahi Newspaper company. This was beneficial to Hisa Takuma in two
ways. For one, he had the opportunity to learn a lot of the most mature
techniques from Sokaku. Additionally, he was able to take a lot of photos
of Sokaku's techniques by borrowing the cameras of the newspaper. These
photos were later compiled into 11 volumes of Soden techniques, consisting
of Ten, Chi, and Jin, which have been carefully preserved by the Takumakai
as valuable research material. This is one of the special points of Takumakai.
Daito-ryu Aiki Jujutsu is regarded as a cultural treasure and is the basis
for modern day Aikido. In an attempt to preserve classical martial ways,
the Japanese Ministry of Education produced a series of Kobudo films, of
which Daito-ryu Aiki Jujutsu was the first to be filmed. The members of
Takumakai performed the embu in this film.
The Takumakai organization feels that it must not only preserve and develop
Daito-ryu Aiki Jujutsu, but also must strive to promote it all over the
world and impart it to future generations.