Originally from Tokyo, Japan, Yamada became interested in aikido through his father's cousin, Tadashi Abe, who trained at the Aikikai Hombu Dojo.

Yamada's success in New York greatly contributed to the expansion of aikido around the world with many instructors leaving to teach in foreign countries thereafter.

[2] In those days there was no other aikido teacher (with the exception of the original NY Aikikai founder Yasuo Ohara) from Japan on the east coast of the US, and Yamada would travel weekly to Boston, with frequent trips to Philadelphia and points south as well.

In 2004 the New York Aikikai celebrated its 40th anniversary with a summer camp at Colgate University with many shihan and Dōshu Moriteru Ueshiba in attendance.

Yamada continued to keep an active teaching and travelling schedule, holding seminars in the US as well as Latin America, Russia, France, Germany and other points around the world.

With the deaths of his colleagues Akira Tohei in 1999, Mitsunari Kanai in 2004, and Seiichi Sugano and Nobuyoshi Tamura in 2010, Yamada was one of the most senior living representatives of the last generation of direct students of Morihei Ueshiba.