[3] The course starts from fundamentals, assuming very little about participants' initial knowledge of aikido, but a high level of physical ability is expected.
The senshusei course was originally created in 1957 by Gozo Shioda, founder of Yoshinkan Aikido, to train the Tokyo riot police.
[3][7] The course has been available to non-police candidates since the 1980s, but was developed primarily for foreign students interested in becoming instructors starting in 1991.
[8] Then-9th dan Kyoichi Inoue, shihan, stopped teaching in the senshusei course when he resigned from the Yoshinkan in March 2006 following an internal dispute,[9] later establishing his own branch, Aikido Shinwakan (合氣道親和館).
[10] Following Inoue's departure, Tsutomu Chida, 8th dan,[11] and then-chief instructor of the Yoshinkan honbu-dōjō,[12] also broke away, establishing Aikido Renshinkai (合気道錬身会) in 2008,[13] thus ending his teaching in the course.