“A member of the feared Black Dragon Society” Yoshida Kotaro 1883-1966

“A member of the feared Black Dragon Society”

Born in Fukushima prefecture, Kotaro was one of if not the top student of Sokaku Takeda from Hokkaido. He received the Kyuju Dairi award from Takeda, and often accompanied him as an assistant instructor. After the war, he taught in Tokyo and was responsible for a very important library.

He was skilled in martial arts from a young age because both of his parents were trained. He reportedly survived many combat situations and killed many adversaries, including the person responsible for killing his father.

He began his study of Daito-Ryu Aikijujutsu under Sokaku Takeda in 1915. He introduced Morihei Ueshiba to Sokaku Takeda. From his combat studies of Daitu ryu Aikijujutsu, Ueshiba developed the martial art of Aikido which focusses on harmony and non resistance leading to success.

He was involved deeply in the Amur River Society also known as the Black Dragon Society, an ultra right wing nationalist society of disenfranchised ex-samurai supporting Japanese Imperialism.

While by all accounts a prolific martial artist and teacher, there is little surviving documentation of Yoshida’s life that has been translated into English. Because he was known to have lived an extremely ascetic lifestyle, and possibly as a result of his political activities and connections, most information on Yoshida has been passed down through oral transmission by primary sources.

By all accounts he was one of the most talented martial artists ever and focused his technical skills on Daito Ryu Aiki JuJitsu. He was talented in many other aspects of martial arts especially the mental aspects of martial arts including zen, meditation, breath control, intuition, and hypnotism.

His top students were Mas Oyama, Richard Kim and Katsuyuki Kondo. He lived in Yokohama at the end of his life and lived with Richard Kim above a bar that he and his wife owned.

He was very popular with the martial artists of the day, including Doshin So and Hiroshi Kinjo.

His son, Kenji Yoshida, lived in the US for many years and taught Yanagi Ryu Aikijujutsu to Dan Angier, a teacher in California.