Taikiken Pages - The History of Taikiken: Kenichi Sawai's Journey to Mastery

Later, after I had mastered Ta-ch'eng-ch’üan, I founded another branch of combat training, which I call Taikiken. (This is the Japanese reading of T'ai-ch’i-chuan. Since I am Japanese, I shall use the Japanese reading throughout this text.) As a foreigner, I was able to gain the permission of Wang Hsiang-ch'i to substitute characters in the name of his school of kempo to form the name for my own school. And this is the way the name Taikiken came into being. 

I am proud to be part of a martial-arts tradition as long as that of Ta-ch'eng-ch’üan. Whenever I think of the past, I see Wang Hsiang-ch'i and hear him saying, 'No matter if you hear ki explained a thousand time, you will never understand it on the basis of explanations alone. It is something that you must master on your own strength.' 

My course of training in China was arduous and long- eleven years and eight months. When World War II ended, I returned to Japan. 

Once in my training hall in Japan, I was suddenly surprised to feel something that I suspected might be the ki of which Wang Hsiang-ch'i used to speak. 

This surprise was the rebeginning of Taikiken, to which I intend to devote myself for the rest of my life.