Motomichi Anno Sensei

(1931 - 2026)

“Search for your center. Send your light out to great nature. 
Experience yourself as a fresh wind blowing throughout the cosmos.”
– Motomichi Anno Sensei

A Tribute to  Our Teacher Motomichi Anno Sensei

by Kimberly Richardson

We love our teachers. Great teachers fill us with hope, humility, and the courage to live life fully. I am sad to share the news that my beloved teacher Motomichi Anno Sensei, 8th Dan, passed away on January 31, 2026, at the age of 94. Sensei began his Aikido training with O Sensei as a young man of 23 years old and dedicated his entire life to sharing his heartfelt teachings to Aikidoists around the world. He was a longtime instructor at the Kumano Juku Dojo in the coastal city of Shingu, Japan, known for its natural beauty and spiritual history.  In 1969, he founded his own dojo, Matsubara Dojo, in Kumano City. When I visited in 2014 my student Sara Gerhart Snell and her daughter, I remember watching him drive up in his blue truck with the fragrant cherry blossoms in full bloom. He invited us into the dojo(school) like it was his living room. “Welcome,” he said. There he taught and trained most days until the end of his life. 

I first met Sensei in 1985 when I visited Japan with my teachers Mary Heiny and Tom Read Senseis. Stepping through the dojo door, I was overwhelmed by the intensity of practice expressed in the Kumano Juku dojo in Shingu, but I remember Anno Sensei smiling as if to say, it will all be OK.  Only 30 years of age, I knew then that I would look to this radiant teacher for guidance for the rest of my life. 

In 2000 and 2001 Linda Holiday Sensei encouraged me to bring Anno Sensei to Seattle to teach at Two Cranes Aikido and Emerald City. What an honor. As we walked across the street from Bruce Lee’s graveyard site, he looked up and caught a glance of Mount Ranier in her full pink-hued radiance against the cobalt blue sky. With tears pouring down his cheeks chanted: 

“Amaterasu O Kami, (Japanese goddess of the sun) thank you!” 

Anno Sensei taught me about things like ‘be in gratitude’, ‘embrace great nature’, ‘open your heart’, and ‘feel the mystery of deep connection.’ I will be grateful my whole life for this instruction. I grieve his passing and I celebrate the tremendous outpouring of kindness and deep understanding about how we could be in worldwide fellowship. Human beings are a big family connected by heartfelt compassion. I send my love out to each of you who seek to create a world inspired by loving kindness. He is with us now standing on the floating bridge of heaven, laughing and encouraging us not to take ourselves so seriously.