What is not explicitly stated here, but implied, is that Morihei had

strong financial support in addition to being a talented student.

About the age of 30 I went to Engaru in Hokkaido. There I met Professor Sokaku Takeda of
Aizu, teacher of Daito Ryu who taught me for 30 dyas. While I studied I felt something like
inspiration. After inviting the professor to my house, I very earnestly pursued the real truth of the
martial arts with 15 or 16 of my servants and disciples. Professor Takeda had opened my eyes
to the real martial arts.
We recently published a long-forgotten interview of Aikido Founder Morihei Ueshiba that
contains the above passage. Moriheis comment contains a very important bit of
information: After inviting the professor to my house, I very earnestly pursued the real
truth of the martial arts with 15 or 16 of my servants and disciples. What exactly is going
on here?
At this point in time, 1915, Morihei was one of the leaders of a group from Tanabe in southern
Japan, who was working to establish a settlement in the remote village of Shirataki in northern
Hokkaido. He and the group from Tanabe had relocated to Hokkaido three years earlier and
had struggled to build a community in this inhospitable climate.
Also, Morihei was a martial arts enthusiast and had heard of the reputation of jujutsu expert
Sokaku Takeda who was conducting jujutsu seminars in Hokkaido and elsewhere. Benefiting
from an introduction from a mutual acquaintance Kotaro Yoshida, Morihei seized the opportunity
to meet Sokaku in person in Engaru, a nearby town, in the winter of 1915. On this occasion,
Morihei remained to study for about 30 days, impulsively leaving behind his family and
leadership responsibilities in Shirataki.

Sokaku Takeda (1859-1943)
Soon thereafter, Morihei invites Sokaku to live in his house in Shirataki, and learns from him
along with 15 or 16 of his servants and disciples. We dont have precise information about how
long Sokaku stayed in Moriheis house, but we do know that a short time later Takeda would
uproot his family and settle in Shirataki which became his residence for the rest of his life.
This rather surprising action on the part of Sokaku reveals the importance he attached to
Morihei as his student of Daito-ryu Aikijujutsu. In fact, an unpublished interview with the
Founder states clearly that Sokaku had asked him to become his successor around this time.
Sokaku certainly had high regard for Moriheis abilities as a martial artist and considered him
suitable character-wise to succeed him. Surely, Moriheis study of Daito-ryu jujutsu during this
period was intense and protracted and built the martial foundation upon which his later career
rested.
An interesting side note: these 15 or 16 students also included Yoichiro Inoue, Moriheis
nephew, and other young men from Tanabe. It is quite likely that some of these same members
trained in the judo dojo set up five years earlier in Tanabe for the benefit of Morihei and other
young men to practice. Moriheis father, Yoroku, and Inoues father, Zenzo, were the instigators
of this initiative to channel the excessive energy of these young people in a constructive
direction. Both Yoroku and Zenzo were in Shirataki at this time, a fact that histories published
thus far have glossed over.
What is not explicitly stated here, but implied, is that Morihei had strong financial support in
addition to being a talented student. His support base was primarily his father who was a well-
to-do man, and Zenzo Inoue who was extremely wealthy. Moriheis invitation to Sokaku to come
live with him in Shirataki also meant that Takeda would stop his normal teaching activities to
concentrate on teaching Morihei and his comrades. It would have taken a strong financial
incentive for Sokaku to do this as his seminars were expensive and attracted mainly well-off
students.
Even after Sokaku moved out of Moriheis house, he established residence in Shirataki and built
his own home which was located physically within short walking distance of Morihei as a map
from that period confirms.
I have written a great deal about the later interaction between Morihei and Sokaku in Ayabe,
Tokyo and Osaka in subsequent years, but I wanted to fill in some of the lesser known details of
their early interaction in this article.