Paolo Corallini

Paolo Nicola Corallini (born in Filottrano, Italy, September 26, 1951), is a dentist and an aikido master. He is known to be the highest Iwama Ryu Shihan in the world, since Morihiro Saito Sensei gave him the Iwama Ryu 7th Dan in 2001 in Rome. Paolo Corallini is the only one, together with Ulf Evenas (Sweden), to hold the [http://www.taai.it/index.php?optioncom_content&viewarticle&id53&Itemid56&lang=en 7th] Dan in Iwama Ryu. He is the founder and Chief instructor of Iwama Ryu Italy, the first Iwama Ryu group in the world (est. in 1984).
Paolo Corallini holds the five buki waza mokuroku (weapons certificates) and in 1990 he was appointed by Saito Morihiro to hold Iwama Style examinations in Europe, both for tai jutsu and empty hands techniques.
Youth
Born in Filottrano (a small town on the countryside of the italian region Marche), he started practising ju-jutsu at age of 18, in 1969, and after a little he discovered Aikido, which had lately came to Europe at that time.
In the beginning he studied under the guidance of Motokage Kawamukai, who awarded him with the 1st dan in 1977. In 1979 he received the 2nd dan by Kobayashi Sensei and joined the French group, becoming very close to André Nocquet Sensei, direct student of the Founder and President of Union Européenne d’Aikido. Nocquet awarded Corallini with the 3rd dan in 1981 and the 4th dan in 1984, and Corallini became the President and Chief Instructor of U.I.A. (Unione Italiana Aikido), a division of U.E.A.
In 1984 Corallini wrote his first book, Aikido, the first Italian language book about aikido) and met many japanese masters (Tamura, Tohei, Yamada, Saotome, Chiba). At that point Corallini was one of the most known aikidoka in Europe.
Meeting Saito Morihiro
In the same year he achieve his strongest wish to meet Saito Morihiro Sensei and visit the Ibaraki dojo in Iwama, where O’Sensei created Aikido. Meeting happened in Iwama in 1984, with Stanley Pranin as translator. Suddenly Paolo Corallini realized that the traditional pedagogy of Aikido Saito Sensei was teaching was the most suitable for him then he decided that, from that moment on, Saito Morihiro would have been his sole master for all his life.
1984 - Back from Iwama - Iwama Takemusu Aiki
On February 1985 Paolo Corallini invited Saito Morihiro Shihan to hold two seminars in Osimo and Turin, Italy. Those events counted around 40 people. That was the first time Saito Sensei held seminars in Continental Europe. Since then Corallini Sensei and his group decided to follow the traditional Pedagogy of Aikido Saito Sensei was showing. Saito Sensei used to refer to Iwama Aikido with the term "Takemusu Aikido" or "Iwama Takemusu Aiki". In the mid of the 1980s the Italian association of Saito Sensei's students (formerly called "U.I.A."), directed by Paolo Corallini Shihan, adopted the name "Iwama Takemusu Aiki Italy": it was the first official group to publicly declare to follow only Saito Sensei's pedagogy. At the end of the 1980s, upon suggestion and request of Paolo Corallini, Saito Sensei started delivering his own certificates with the title "Iwama Takemusu Aiki kai Kaicho Saito Morihiro Aikikai Shihan" and for the first time he codified the five weapons certificates (buki waza moku roku).
1990s - The birth of Iwama Ryu
In 1990 Saito Morihiro Sensei, at a seminar in Turin, in presence of his first european students, publicly declared that Paolo Corallini Shihan would be the sole autorhized to conduct Iwama Ryu exams in substitution of him, by saying that while he was not in Europe, he would be substituted only by Paolo Corallini in grading Iwama Ryu. Later on other senior instructors have been delegated by Saito Sensei and Paolo Corallini Shihan to conduct dan exams in their countries.
Corallini Shihan became one of Saito Sensei's pupils until the death of the master, occurred in 2002. In 1993 Saito Sensei delivered the Rokudan (6th Dan) and the "Shihan" title to Paolo Corallini inside Ibaraki dojo. At that time that was the highest Iwama Ryu dan he ever delivered. Saito Morihiro held many international events across Europe and thousands of students joined his group: beside the huge amount of seminars he held in Italy from 1985-2001, Saito Sensei travelled to other european countries like Sweden (hosted by Ulf Evenas Shihan), Denmark (hosted by Copenhagen Aikido Club), Germany (hosted by M. and U. Van Meerendonk Sensei), U.K., France, Portugal, Switzerland. At that time Saito Morihiro used to call the traditional Pedagogy "Iwama style". The term "Iwama Ryu" appears few years after, in the mid 1990s, during a seminar held in Porto Recanati (Italy).
In a meeting with Saito Sensei in Paolo Corallini's house, at the presence of several istructors, Paolo Corallini asked Saito Sensei if he could choose a japanese term to express "Iwama Style Aikido", so that Saito's european students can use to be identified. In that occasion Saito Sensei said that the traditional pedagogy could have also been called "Iwama Ryu Aikido". Since then, little by little, almost all his groups in Europe (and later also in other continents) started changing his name in "Iwama Ryu". The first national association to change the name was "Iwama Takemusu Aiki Italy", which suddenly became "Iwama Ryu Italy". It's a fact that the term "Iwama Ryu" has always been mostly used in Europe, or however by the students of the european instructors like Corallini Shihan, Evenas Shihan, Mark and Ute Van Meerendonk, even though other western Aikido masters became well known as Saito Sensei's students (especially, Iwama Ryu Aikido was rarely adopted as a name in the United States, due to the different history of the local organizations in comparison with Europe).
In 1992 Daniel Toutain was introduced to Saito Sensei by Paolo Corallini, and from that moment Iwama Ryu came to France.
These are the first Iwama Ryu associations to be established:
*Iwama Ryu Italy (Paolo Corallini Shihan)
*Iwama Ryu Scandinavia (Ulf Evenas Shihan)
*Iwama Ryu Germany (Mark and Ute Van Meerendonk Sensei)
*Iwama Ryu France (Daniel Toutain Sensei)
*Iwama Ryu Portugal (Tristao da Cunha Sensei)
A second generation of groups was born in the second half of the 1990s, mostly referring to Paolo Corallini's students across the world:
*Iwama Ryu Croatia (Ivan Zafranovic)
*Iwama Ryu Bulgaria (Georgi Zarkov)
*Iwama Ryu South Africa (Christian Gaston Pacella)
*Iwama Ryu Spain (Javier Cid Martinez)
*Iwama Ryu Scotland (Stephen Colville)
*Iwama Ryu Turkey (Mehmet Dogu, later pupil of Toutain Sensei)
On 1994 he became Technical Supervisor and Chief Instructor of "Aikido" section of the Italian Olympic Committe (F.I.L.P.J.K.-C.O.N.I.), remaining in charge until 2006, when he resigned and let this role to his student Fausto De Compadri.
The Olympic Federation, in those years, published Corallini's second work, Iwama Ryu Aikido.
In 1999 Paolo Corallini wrote his third book, Iwama Ryu Aikido, published by Sperling & Kupfer concerning the traditional pedagogy of Iwama Ryu.
Paolo Corallini translated Morihiro Saito's tutorial books called Takemusu Aikido for the italian publisher Edizioni Mediterranee.
2000s - Iwama Ryu Europe
In 2001 Saito Morihiro held in Lido di Ostia (Rome) his last seminar in Europe. On that occasion he appointed Paolo Corallini Shihan, and then Ulf Evenas Shihan, with the Nanadan (7th Dan) in Iwama Ryu, by appointing them, in an official letter, as his sole representatives in Iwama Ryu (Kyoju Dai Ri). The handwritten documents are property and under care of Iwama Ryu Italy archives. These were the highest Iwama Ryu ranks ever delivered by Saito Sensei.
In that occasion, upon reccomendation of Corallini and Evenas, the other senpais received the 6th Dan Iwama Ryu: Daniel Toutain, Mark and Ute Van Meerendonk. At that time the old European Saito Sensei's students created a network called Iwama Ryu Europe, directed by the two top shihan. After Saito Morihiro passed, in 2002, his old students took different ways: while Corallini, Evenas, M. and U. Van Meerendonk, E. Weisgaard, W. Baumgartner and others remained into Aikikai, others joined Saito Morihiro's son, Hitohira, who created his own group, called Iwama Shin Shin Aiki Shuren Kai. Since then, many people got interested in Iwama Ryu Aikido and many new groups were born: some of them under the guidance of Saito Sensei's pupils, Corallini and Evenas, some others under Hitohira Saito's organization.

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