Introduction :

Miyako Fujitani is a well-respected Japanese first-degree black belt senior instructor (called as ‘Shihan’). She has been practicing Aikido for fifty years.

Personal Life, Parents and Family Details :

• When Miyako was growing up in Kobe City, Japan, taking ballet classes & being a young, feminine girl, she noticed that many men thought it was acceptable to grope or mistreat her when she was on the trains.
• She began to take Aikido classes because she was afraid, and her father was an Osaka Aikido master.
• Many people discouraged her, believing that martial arts were only for men, and women were too weak to participate in it.
• Although socially not well-accepted in her Japanese community, Miyako continued to practice her art and gave all the strength she had, refusing to appear weak.
• Her poor technique resulted in multiple broken bones – especially after participating in strength competitions with men much larger than her.
• She had to take a break from training for a year to heal. During this time, she realized that Aikido is not about power and energy, but about respect and caring for yourself.

Life with Steven Seagal :

• In the early 1970s, Miyako’s father came to Los Angeles to teach Aikido and remained there for a short while. In July 1974, Miyako went for an Aikido seminar and met the action film star, Steven Seagal at the Los Angeles airport.
• Back then, Steven was tall and skinny with long hair, and wearing a wild Hawaiian shirt, Miyako remembers.
• Steven was on his way to Japan to becoming an instructor, and he joined them when her family returned to Japan, teaching in her father’s school.
• Miyako and Seagal got married in 1975 and they ran Tenshin Aikido for many years. They went on to have a daughter named Ayako who is a writer and actress, and a son named Kentaro Seagal (born in October 1975), who is also an action film star and a model.
• The couple had difficult days, losing a baby and trying to maintain their careers on opposite continents.
• She remembers that Seagal’s movie career became a problem due to the travel and his other instructor duties in the US, leaving her with children and a school in Osaka to support with little income.
• Many years later, she is now a grandmother to two children by her son, Kentaro. Kentaro married Yin Tze in 2005.

Business Career, Salary and Net Worth :

• Fujitani is head of the Aikido Tenshin Dojo authentic and internationally recognized martial arts schools in Osaka, Japan, which she started with her ex-husband Seagal.
• She has been teaching Tenshin Dojo for more than fifty years and has given interviews and seminars all over the world.
• Also an author, Miyako has written the foundation of her Aikido experiences in poems and essays in a recently published book.
• Aikido is not an offensive fighting technique but is a practice of the cultivation of internal “ki” power and energy into circular movements and harmonious dynamics. Mayako stresses that the most important factor is the skill to control the flow of this energy.

Miyako’s Daughter Ayako :

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