John Stevens

John William Stevens (December 2, 1947 – July 21, 2025) was an American Buddhist priest, author, professor of Buddhist studies and Aikido teacher.

Stevens lived in Sendai, Japan, from 1973 to around 2008, where he taught Eastern philosophy and Aikido at Tohoku Fukushi University. His Aikido rank was 7th dan Aikikai. After leaving Japan, he moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, where he resided until his death on July 21, 2025.

Biography Stevens was born in Chicago but grew up in Evanston, Illinois. He moved to Sendai in 1973 in order to study Buddhism and began practicing Aikido soon afterwards. He trained with many teachers throughout his career, but his main teacher was Shirata Rinjiro (9th dan Aikikai), about whom he wrote the book Aikido: The Way of Harmony. He created his own system, which he called Classical Aikido, which is a complete system emphasizing misogi, kotodama, and the unity of aiki-ken, aiki-jo, and taijutsu (body arts). He taught it at numerous seminars all over the world.

Criticism John Stevens is known to insert his own wording as well as remove original significant wording in his Japanese to English technical translation in aikido publication.

In 1992 edition of The Art of Peace, it's implied that Ueshiba said "True victory is self-victory". However, in note of direct teaching from Ueshiba, there never was intention of causal, equivalent or containing relationship between Masakatsu (正勝) and Agatsu (吾勝). Furthermore, Ueshiba never used term "The Art of Peace" as replacement for aikido; his own names were Aiki, Aikido, Takemusu Aiki, Shobu Aiki, Budo. In the book, however, Stevens' term almost universally replaced any term refer to aikido.