Yoshinkan Aikido (養神館合気道) is a rigorous and technically exact style of aikidō. It was founded by Shioda Gōzō, who trained directly under Ueshiba Morihei, the creator of aikidō, in the years before the Second World War, and it keeps much of the harder, more martial flavour of that early teaching.
Shioda Gōzō
Shioda Gōzō (1915 to 1994) was a prewar live-in student of Ueshiba. After the war he established the Yoshinkan in Tōkyō in 1955, and despite his small stature he built a reputation for formidable practical skill. He is one of the most influential figures in the spread of aikidō.
Endless repetition of the basics is the shortest road to control.
A harder aikidō
Yoshinkan is built around kihon dōsa, a compact set of basic movements that are drilled with great precision and from which the joint locks and throws are developed. The style stresses stable posture, exact angle and distance, and reliable application, rather than the flowing, improvised feeling associated with some other lines of aikidō.
Police and a wide reach
The style was adopted to train members of the Tōkyō Metropolitan Police, including riot units, and a structured instructor course later helped carry it well beyond Japan. This practical, teachable structure is one reason for its international reach.
Honesty note
Yoshinkan Aikido is well documented as a twentieth-century style. It stands as one of the major streams of aikidō, alongside the Aikikai founded by Ueshiba's own line.