O-Sensei Morihei Ueshiba

Morihei Ueshiba was born in Tanabe, Japan, on December 14, 1883.

At the age of 18, he discovered his enthusiasm for martial arts and developed his own style based on proven principles. He is aware of the contradiction between destructive war and true Bodo, the "way of love."

He retired to Iwama and from then on called his martial art aikido.

In Tokyo, the dojo was reopened in 1949 and his son Kisshomaru Ueshiba founded the Aikikai. However, Morihei Ueshiba remained in the seclusion of the province of Iwama. In 1961, Morihei Ueshiba visited Hawaii on invitation and said that he had come to Hawaii to build a "silver bridge." He saw the harmony and love contained in Aikido as a means of uniting the people of the world.

On the morning of April 26, 1969, O-Sensei Morihei Ueshiba died at the age of 86.

Master André Nocquet

Master André Nocquet was born on July 30, 1914, in Prahecq, France.

In 1951, he was introduced to Aikido by Master Minoru Mochizuki, who taught in France for a time. A year later, Master Tadashi Abe came to France as a representative of the Aikido Hombu Dojo, and Nocquet began studying Aikido with him.

In 1955, Nocquet had meanwhile acquired 1st dan in aikido and 4th dan in judo. On the recommendation of Master Abe, he went to Japan to study aikido and, by the end of 1957, became O-Sensei Morihei Ueshiba's first non-Japanese live-in student (uchideshi). After returning to France, André Nocquet made it his life's work to spread Aikido in the spirit of Morihei Ueshiba.

André Nocquet died on March 12, 1999, and was buried in the Prahecq cemetery.

Sensei John Emmerson

Sensei Emmerson has been studying martial arts for over forty years and came to aikido in the late 1960s.

In the early 1970s, he became a close personal student of Master André Nocquet. In 1997, during his last major seminar in Blois, Master Nocquet asked Sensei Emmerson to continue his tradition under the motto "Dynamic Aikido Nocquet (D.A.N.)".

More information: www.dynamic-aikido-nocquet.org