MOTOMICHI ANNO is one of the highest-level teachers of Aikido in the world today. An eighth-degree black belt since 1978, he is one of the few remaining Japanese master-teachers who received direct instruction from the founder of Aikido. Anno Sensei’s simple wisdom, humility, and heart have inspired thousands of students and teachers in Japan and abroad.
Anno Sensei was born in 1931 in the Kumano region of Japan, where many traditions and spiritual practices of Japan have been kept alive. He suffered poverty and hardship as a child in wartime, but emerged after the
war determined to do something positive with his life. When he was twenty-three years old, Anno Sensei became a student of the founder of Aikido and began a lifelong devotion to Aikido as a practice of peace and the cultivation of the heart.
For over four decades, Anno Sensei served as a senior instructor at the historic Kumano Juku Dojo in Shingu, Japan. He also founded his own school, Matsubara Dojo, in Kumano City, in 1969. In 2004, he succeeded the late Michio Hikitsuchi Sensei to serve for nine years... read more >