Tadashi Abe

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Tadashi Abe (1926 - November 23, 1984) was the first aikido master to live and teach in the west. He began Aikido in Osaka in 1942 and went on to train directly under the founder of the art Morihei Ueshiba at Iwama. In 1952, after graduating in law from Waseda University, he moved to France where he both studied law at the Sorbonne, and also taught aikido as a 6th Dan representative of Aikikai Honbu. After seven years he returned to Japan.

Aikido had been introduced into France a year earlier by Minoru Mochizuki during a visit, but it was Tadashi Abe's teaching at the judo dojo of Mikinosuke Kawaishi where aikido was first taught on a regular basis in the west. During this time he made several trips to the UK to aid Kenshiro Abbe in a similar venture in that country.

Upon his return to Japan, Tadashi Abe was famously very vocal concerning the direction aikido had gone. He felt it had lost its roots and had become effeminate; it was no longer the budo he studied under Morihei Ueshiba.