Draft:Tomiki Aikido of the Americas

Tomiki Aikido of the Americas (TAA) is a an American non-profit organization that promotes "Sport Aikido" or competitive aikido (aikido kyogi). This is a competitive form of the martial art, created by Kenji Tomiki, a pre-war student of Morihei Ueshiba who left the Aikikai in the 1960's.

Origins
Robert Dziubla trained in Tomiki Aikido in Chicago, IL, before traveling to Japan to train with Kenji Tomiki at Waseda University. At the end of his first trip to Japan in 1971, Tomiki awarded Dziubla the rank of shodan. He returned to Japan several times, and in 1982, a team of American players he had trained managed to win a tournament at Waseda. At Waseda, one of his fellow aikidoka was Fumiaki Shishida. In 1983, Dziubla was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study law in Kyoto and while there, he devoted considerable time to training at the Shodokan dojo in Osaka, under one of Tomiki's foremost students, Tetsuro Nariyama. American aikidoka have continued to participate in Japan Aikido Association events ever since.

Japan Aikido Association USA
In 1990, Dziubla and several other senior aikidoka formed the Japan Aikido Association USA (JAA USA). Other founding members included Seiji Tanaka, Nobuyoshi Higashi, Yoji Kondo, Maurice Stevens, and Greg Linden. The JAA USA was founded, "to help to coordinate national events, provide support for regional events, encourage the interchange of information on training methods and the coordination of our grading and promotion standards with those used by the Japan Aikido Association, raise public funds to support the Association and its educational goals, and to engage in related activities." Internationally, the JAA USA joined Tomiki Aikido International Network (TAIN), which was formed in 1993, and participated in international events throughout the world. TAIN has since been re-established as the International Tomiki Aikido Federation (ITAF).

Name Change and Expanded Focus
After over two decades, the JAA USA's membership had expanded to include dojo outside of the USA. Several practitioners, including Dziubla, had attained high ranks in Tomiki Aikido. The board of the JAA USA decided to change the name of the organization to Tomiki Aikido of the Americas (TAA) in 2012. In part, this decision was made because the international state of Tomiki Aikido had changed as well. Tetsuro Nariyama established a separate organization, the Shodokan Aikido Federation (SAF). In 2017, members of the international community also formed the Worldwide Sport Aikido Federation (WSAF) as an international governing body. The TAA has sent teams to all four of the WSAF tournaments and hosted the third tournament in San Diego, CA, in 2019. The most recent tournament was held in Nara, Japan in 2023.

Governance
The technical aspects of the TAA are overseen by three shihan or senior instructors: Robert Dziubla (8th Dan), Robert King (7th Dan), and Maurice "Moe" Stevens (7th Dan). The organization's operations are overseen by a Board of Directors, selected from the membership. There is also a Technical Director, who under the supervision of the shihan facilitates training directly related to developing competitive teams for national and international competition.