Koichi Tohei

Kōichi Tōhei 藤平光一 Tōhei Kōichi
Tohei demonstrating Aikido with Jon Takagi at Arizona State University in 1974.
Born	(1920-01-20)January 20, 1920 Shitaya, Tokyo, Japan
Died	May 19, 2011(2011-05-19) (aged 91) Tokyo, Japan
Native name	藤平光一 Tōhei Kōichi
Style	Founder of Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido

Koichi Tohei (藤平光一, Tōhei Kōichi^?) (20 January 1920 – 19 May 2011) was a 10th Dan aikidoka and founder of the Ki Society and its style of aikido, officially Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido (literally "aikido with mind and body unified"), but commonly known as Ki-Aikido.

Koichi Tohei was born 1920 in Shitaya ward (下谷区), presently Taitō, in Tokyo and graduated from the Economics Department of Keio University. As a boy he was sickly and frail, leading his father to recommend Tohei for judo studies. He trained hard and his body prospered, but soon after he began his pre-college studies at Keio University, he developed a case of pleurisy. This forced Tohei to take a year off.

Tohei was distressed at the thought of losing his newfound strength of body and his means of training it, so he decided to replace his judo studies with Zen meditation and misogi exercises, learned at the Ichikukai Dojo in Tokyo. As with his judo studies, Tohei entered the training of the mind with fervor and soon excelled despite his serious health issues. After his recovery from pleurisy, Tohei became convinced that it was his efforts in training his mind and cultivating his ki that had helped him to heal and recover. This stimulated his later development of Kiatsu, a system of treating physical illness by pressing with the fingers and extending the ki into the ill person's body. Tohei describes this as "priming the pump" allowing the person to heal themselves.

After recovering from pleurisy he returned to judo, but Tohei wanted more than just physical training and did not think that judo was the right art for him to practise, although he did continue studying judo until he started aikido.