Masashi Numata Sensei (7th Dan)-Princeton Aikikai

We are deeply saddened to share the news that our beloved Masashi Numata Sensei, 7th Dan is currently in hospice care at home and his passing is imminent. As a community, we are coming together to support his family and our dear Aikido Sensei.

We are asking for your help to contribute to the expenses that his family will have for his burial service. All donations will be greatly appreciated and will go towards honoring our Numata Sensei’s life and legacy.

Numata Sensei, born in Himeji Japan, and raised in Shioanji Temple, has touched our lives through his dedication to teaching Aikido. His unwavering commitment to his students both in the USA and Japan has had a profound and positive impact on our lives.

In Japan, he began studying Aikido in his early twenties under Bansen Tanaka Sensei, the founder of Osaka Aikikai. Over the years Numata Sensei lived in Kyoto and became head teacher of the Yamashina Dojo. Additionally, he was one of the Head-Senseis at the Kyoto Aikido Embukai. Forty-plus Aikido Dojos from Kansai area gathered every spring to demonstrate their techniques at the oldest Budo center of Japan in the heart of Kyoto.

Numata Sensei moved to Princeton, New Jersey with his wife, Marie Numata (6th Dan Aikido) in 2001 to establish Princeton Aikikai under the leadership of Yamada Sensei (New York Aikikai/President of the United States Aikido Federation). Numata Sensei and his wife opened Princeton Aikikai in January 2002, welcoming all people, and teaching youth and adult classes. In March 2020, COVID closed the doors of the Dojo, and Numata Sensei's health began to deteriorate. For the time being, we are unable to re-open the training center.

As a community, we the students of Princeton Aikikai are coming together to help put Sensei at peace upon his departure from this world and the continuation of his journey. Sensei's final wishes are for his body to be cremated and his ashes laid to rest under a tree. His wife has selected the Princeton Memorial Park and Mausoleum Cemetery in Robbinsville New Jersey. He will be laid to rest under four beautiful mature cherry trees, as he cherished the spring blossoms year after year.

We hope that you will join us in giving back to the Numata Sensei family and helping to ease the financial burden of his burial expenses. As an Aikido community, we can partake in laying Sensei to rest in peace under the Tree of Life. As Numata Sensei has taught us, "There are many leaves to a tree, all unique and different where the roots are the foundation and the trunk holds us together as one -the Tree of Life".

We will all miss him.

Life is a celebration.

Forever grateful. Thank you.