Creative Style
Shoji Nishio (December 5, 1927 – March 15, 2005) was a Japanese aikido teacher holding the rank of 8th dan shihan from the Aikikai.
Nishio was born in Aomori Prefecture of Japan in 1927. He joined Aikikai Hombu Dojo in 1951 and began to teach around 1955. Before aikido he studied other martial arts, among them, judo, karate, iaido and jodo.
He managed to smoothly include skills gained from these other arts into his own specific aikido style where all techniques can be performed with the wooden sword bokken in hand as well as without weapons.
He held the title of an Aikikai shihan and created a new school of Iaido with forms from aikido, called Aiki Toho Iaido or Nishio-ryu Iai. In 2003 Nishio received the Budo Kyoryusho award from Japanese Budo Federation for his lifetime contribution to development and worldwide propagation of aikido.
He died in March 2005 aged 77.
