塩田剛三
During his boyhood his health was fragile, which led him to receive acupuncture treatment, and to practice Sumo wrestling and Kenjutsu. In his youth he became an uchi-deshi for 7 years in the household of Torataro Saito, who taught him oriental medicine - as well as Daito-ryu Aikijujutsu and Ueshiba-ryu (!) Aiki-Budo. Technically, Kawai's foundation was therefore old school, in line with that of Gozo Shioda (Yoshinkan) and Morihiro Saito (Iwama).