Morita Tadahiko 8th Dan Hanshi

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Morita sensei passed away on the morning of 11th February 2026 following a short illness. Morita Sensei was instrumental in developing Iaido in Europe and travelled for many years to various countries to support our growth. In Japan, he was the organiser of the annual Kyoto Embu Taikai for decades and also organised the 1997 Iaido World Embu Taikai that allowed, for the first time, foreign participants to enter the sacred inner area of Heian Shrine with swords to perform a mass embu. His precise teaching and strong presence at our seminars will be greatly missed.

Masamune Seminar and Taikai, Henley in Arden.

 

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Outside William Shakespeare’s house, Stratford upon Avon.

 

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Waiting for the boat to lunch on the River Avon.

 

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[HighKick]

Now, this is how you memorialize someone.
So sorry for your loss.

 

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Morita sensei loved cats. He told me that he would feed stray cats that ventured into his garden/home in , near Kyoto and eventually it would became clear that they decided to adopt him. Before he did this, he’d take them in his arms and explain them, “I’m happy you want to stay here with me and my wife, but in order to do that, you first have to visit the veterinary surgery for a ‘special procedure’ ️️ / Only then can you stay.” I’m think he had about 13 cats in total.

 

[HighKick]

Morita sensei loved cats. He told me that he would feed stray cats that ventured into his garden/home in , near Kyoto and eventually it would became clear that they decided to adopt him. Before he did this, he’d take them in his arms and explain them, “I’m happy you want to stay here with me and my wife, but in order to do that, you first have to visit the veterinary surgery for a ‘special procedure’ ️️ / Only then can you stay.” I’m think he had about 13 cats in total.

Well, at least he done it right. But man oh man do I Hate cats. Even though we have dozens of feral cats on the farm. They somewhat serve a purpose but you have to put up with a lot of crap (literally) to have them around.

 

[Flying Crane]

Morita sensei loved cats. He told me that he would feed stray cats that ventured into his garden/home in , near Kyoto and eventually it would became clear that they decided to adopt him. Before he did this, he’d take them in his arms and explain them, “I’m happy you want to stay here with me and my wife, but in order to do that, you first have to visit the veterinary surgery for a ‘special procedure’ ️️ / Only then can you stay.” I’m think he had about 13 cats in total.

Cats are amazing animals, and his compassion for the strays is part of his legacy. It isn’t the cats’ fault that they are stray. It is the people who failed them somewhere along the way. I had inherited a feral colony with a house I bought near San Francisco. I began trapping them and having them fixed and given basic veterinary care (the local SPCA had a feral cat program) and some of those cats became my friends as well, one of them insisting that she move into the house for the last few months of her life. I tried to do my part as a member of the neighborhood in keeping the issue under control and probably prevented dozens of kittens from being born into a feral life.

We have had cats in the house with us for a couple decades now, and they constantly amaze me with their sweetness, intelligence and companionability. People often feel that they need to choose between cats and dogs. You can love either one or the other but not both. That is nonsense. I grew up with dogs and love them too. We would have a dog too but with our busy lives are not in a position to be around to care for a dog in the way it needs and deserves. So we choose to have no dog instead of having a dog and doing it poorly. We have cats and we love them to the end.

I give a bow and raise a toast to Morita sensei’s memory.

 

[HighKick]

Cats are amazing animals, and his compassion for the strays is part of his legacy. It isn’t the cats’ fault that they are stray. It is the people who failed them somewhere along the way. I had inherited a feral colony with a house I bought near San Francisco. I began trapping them and having them fixed and given basic veterinary care (the local SPCA had a feral cat program) and some of those cats became my friends as well, one of them insisting that she move into the house for the last few months of her life. I tried to do my part as a member of the neighborhood in keeping the issue under control and probably prevented dozens of kittens from being born into a feral life.

We have had cats in the house with us for a couple decades now, and they constantly amaze me with their sweetness, intelligence and companionability. People often feel that they need to choose between cats and dogs. You can love either one or the other but not both. ThaTot is nonsense. I grew up with dogs and love them too. We would have a dog too but with our busy lives are not in a position to be around to care for a dog in the way it needs and deserves. So we choose to have no dog instead of having a dog and doing it poorly. We have cats and we love them to the end.

I give a bow and raise a toast to Morita sensei’s memory.

To be clear, we live catch as many as we can each year during our local S&N Vets program. It is the cost of materials, something like $10-$20/cat. If we didn't, I can't imagine how many cats we would have. Thankfully, our farms are fairly large so we only have to worry about the cats we know about and not too many from off the farms.
My SIL lives on one farm and she has several she keeps in/around the house and also is very fundamental in our annual S&N. Just like other wild or domesticated animals, cats act very different when people are not around and truly have no boundaries on where or what they do.
We have a modest amount of predation from coyotes that do help with population as well.

 

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The last time I visited Kyoto, I decided to pop in and watch one of Morita Sensei’s classes in the historic and beautiful Butokuden or ‘Hall of Martial Virtues’. Eventually he spotted me and my girlfriend (I suspect it was she he really liked despite her being distinctly ‘alternative’ in appearance, complete with piercings and tattoos etc) and came over, surprised to see us in Japan! He grabbed one of his students to translate his unintelligible Kansai dialect (he was once CEO of Panasonic/National so he spoke perfect English but being old school and of samurai descent, refused to blemish his moral rectitude with our uncouth language!) and spontaneously gave us a guided tour of the resplendent building including showing us the underground passageway reserved for the Emperor when he entered the building (we didn’t walk through it, of course). Morita sensei was a…how can I put it….prickly, stern sort of person. Many found him to be a bit scary to be around and indeed, he didn’t suffer fools, slovenly (fat) people or indeed certain types of foreigner but he was very nice to me and of course, my girlfriend. That is, other than referring to me as ‘baka’ when relaying his narrative to his translating student. He didn’t know I understood a bit of what he was saying and the translator was clearly embarrassed and taking care to translate diplomatically

He wanted to send a car to our hotel the next day to show us around Kyoto, and I’m sure he had special access to interesting places not normally available to tourists. But, alas, we were heading to Kumamoto the next day to discover Musashi Miyamoto’s cave, final resting place and the castle where he stayed as guest of the Hojo daimyo.