In search of Bansen Tanaka

I was told years ago that I was in Bansen Tanaka's lineage.  I was never told this by my own dojo or Shihan, (it was more of a shut up and train environment) but by other sources.  Until very recently, there was no information available on him.  I went looking up this man's history in part because it has now become a part of my history.

Bansen Tanaka was a Judo student before he became an Aikido student, as was Morihei Ueshiba himself.  He met Morihei Ueshiba in 1936 (some English sources say 1935), around five years after the Manchurian Incident.  Kano Jigoro would die at sea two years later, but multiple Judo students had already come to train with Morihei Ueshiba.

Bansen Tanaka's Wikipedia bio also identifies him as a student of Ueshiba's nephew, Noriyaki Inoue.  Noriaki claimed the title of co-founder of Aikido.  He had been raised in the Ueshiba home, and had been present for all of Takeda's instruction from the beginning.  Inoue was additionally a very devote Oomoto Kyo believer, and he had also been present for the meeting of Onisaburo Deguchi and Morihei Ueshiba.  He lived in the Oomoto compound with the Ueshiba family.  The second Oomoto incident in 1935 led to the arrest of several Oomoto leaders, but a police chief in Osaka was able to warn Morihei so that Morihei personally escaped arrest.  Noriaki was critical of Morihei for not sharing the same fate as the Oomoto Kyo leadership.  The Inoue family was also very wealthy and had been the main financiers of Morihei's adventures up until this point.

Tanaka built a dojo for Inoue in Osaka, and his biography states he followed the teachings of both Noriaki and Morihei until he was drafted in 1939.  The falling out of Inoue and Ueshiba worsened and the two eventually broke ties.  Tanaka is still identified as a student of both men after the event that precipitated these two innovators separating.

The name Aikido was coined in 1942, right around the time Ueshiba quit his military training posts and moved to Iwama.  Conversely, Inoue continued to teach his art as Aiki-Budo until 1956, and after a few name changes Inoue's art is now known as Shin'ei Taido.  Wikipedia makes no mention of students of Noriaki Inoue at all.  It is Bansen Tanaka's Wiki entry that connects him to Inoue; not the other way around.  Noriaki Inoue around the 1:16 mark doing a technique Kawahara taught on several occasions - that I haven't seen since.

Tanaka was a student of Ueshiba who started when the certificates handed out were for Daito Ryu under Sokaku Takeda.  Takeda and Ueshiba broke ties not long after Tanaka started - 1937.  A famous incident where Takeda showed up in Osaka to announce he would take over instruction of the Asahi news group in Osaka happened in 1936.

Gozo Shioda had been training since 1932.  Kenji Tomiki was more senior (starting in 1925), and would leave for Manchuria the same year as Tanaka started.  Kiyoshi Nakakura (Ueshiba Morihiro) was married to Morihei's eldest daughter, adopted into the family, and was expected to succeed Morihei.  The marriage ended with divorce the year following Tanaka's starting training.  

A good friend of Nakakura's was the photographer for the Noma dojo photo shoot in 1936 that would come to be Ueshiba's book, Budo.  Gozo Shioda and Kisshomaru Ueshiba would both appear as uke, though several sources say Kisshomaru only started to officially train in 1937 - after the schism of Takeda and Ueshiba.
 

(I'm not saying Tanaka played a role in any of these events.  There is so much talk about how messy Aikido politics got in the mid-1970s, and those events sound so much more straightforward!  I chose to believe it is a comment on Tanaka's determination and character to continue to train throughout this events.)

Tanaka was drafted into the army in 1939, where he served as a bodyguard.  The war ended in 1945, and Aikido was outlawed until 1949 (though famous students like Morihiro Saito and Hirokazu Kobayashi both date their start in training to 1946).  Wikipedia says Tanaka resumed his aikido training a year "after" (I think they mean a year after the war ended, not a year after he left).  I don't know how it worked out, but eventually Tanaka was asked by O Sensei to open Osaka Aikikai in 1951.  Tanaka stayed in Iwama until the dojo was opened in early 1952.  O Sensei arrived and taught in Osaka for several weeks, and made very frequent trips to Osaka.

Shioda started a dojo in 1950, gave a career changing demonstration in 1954, and didn't start his own style until 1955 officially.  Morihei Ueshiba looked to be in retirement, and Shioda was Tanaka's senior.

Hirokazu Kobayashi was a judo, kendo and karate student who relocated to Osaka in 1954.  A 1964 copy of Kisshomaru's Aikido lists two Osaka dojo, and lists Kobayashi as a Hombu Shihan - the title was not applied to Tanaka, though he was more senior.  While Kobayashi's Wikipedia makes no mention of Daito Ryu, this discussion is interesting.  Kobayashi became prominent in Europe, and is well known for a separate system of Aiki Shin Taiso or a set of solo exercises for developing Aiki that to my knowledge is not the same as Koichi Tohei's Aiki Taiso.  He is also known for inviting Tomiki Sensei to teach in Osaka and for working closely with the Shodokan aikido system after that schism had happened.  The Shodokan Aikido headquarters dojo was built in Osaka in 1967.


It's finally gotten to the point that I can go to YouTube and search for video of Bansen Tanaka.  There is an interview with Stanley Pranin (you need an Aikido Journal membership, which I can never recommend enough anyway), and Ellis Amdur's It Had To Be Felt had a meeting that seemed to show some frustrations between Tanaka and the Aikikai Hombu.  So many of the pre-war students had been closely associated with Tanaka it seems.  The one name that doesn't come up in association is Koichi Tohei, and Kisshomaru Ueshiba would have started at the same time - without Tanaka's Judo background.


I don't think I feel any better informed as to who Bansen Tanaka was, but Osaka sounds like a very rich budo environment.  I wish I had known as much of the history now as I did when I first travelled there with Kawahara sensei.  There are many questions I wish I could ask him.