Shoji Nishio (December 5, 1927 – March 15, 2005) was an 8 Dan Aikikai Shihan. He was one of Morihei Ueshiba’s post-war-era students in the Hombu.
Shoji Nishio was born in the Aomori Prefecture in 1927. He was doing Judo in the Kyuzo Mifune’s school before he joined the Hombu Dojo in 1951. This was a great time to find friends for life like Koichi Tohei, Kenji Tomiki, Morihiro Saito, Kisaburo Osawa, Hiroshi Tada, and many others. In 60’ Nishio Sensei was already teaching in the same Hombu.
Aikido was his favorite but not the only one. He managed to get 7 Dan in Nihon Zendoku Iaido, 6 Dan in Kodokan Judo, 5 Dan in Shindo Kinen Ryu Karate. Learned Jodo, Jojutsu and Sojutsu.
Gathered knowledge he used to create new styles of like Aiki Toho Iaido and Nishio-Ryu Iai. His main idea was to make the same techniques work with and without weapons. Despite creating his own styles, he was loyal to Aikikai until the end.
Shoji Nishio cared much about the effectiveness of the techniques and used a lot of Atemi because of that. Sensei was teaching in Europe, America, France, Germany, and his home country of course. In Japan, he curated Aikido in the Kanagawa, Chiba, Hiroshima, Siga, Nagano, and Saitama Prefectures.
When Sensei was a teenager he got an official job in the Ministry of Finance. He managed to keep it till 1980 and that fact looks crazy considering all the life achievements he collected.
In 2000 he published a book named Aikido – Yuruso Budo where he explains the principles of non-aggression and in 2003 received the award from the Japanese Budo Federation for his lifetime contribution to the development and worldwide propagation of Aikido.
Sensei left a lot of high ranked students around the world like Koji Yoshida, Izumi Tauchi, Thomas Huffman, Paul Muller, etc. Some of them created a separated school named in honor of their teacher, Nishio Budo.
Enjoy the interviews taken with Shoji Nishio at AikidoJournal.com and AikidoSangenkai.org. You can also join his fan group on Facebook.