Aikidos founder, Morihei Ueshiba, was born in Japan on December 14^th, 1883. As a boy, he often saw (yakuza) local thugs beat up his father for political reasons. Young Ueshiba decided to make himself strong so that he could help his father. However his slender build showed to be a problem, so he devoted himself to hard physical conditioning and eventually to the practice of martial arts. Being awarded a teaching certificate from Sokaku Takeda and mastering several styles of jujitsu, fencing, and spear fighting. Young Ueshiba still felt a great void within him. Which is why he began delving into religions, possibly in the hopes of finding a deeper significance to life, Using the combination of his studies in the martial arts with religious and political ideologies, he created the martial art known  as Aikido.