Peter Shapiro Sensei was born in 1938 in New York City. He was brought up as an artist-musician. The Vietnam War, which was the third large war he had experienced, caused him to look for a deeper solution to the problem of war than had heretofore been proposed in western thinking, leading him to go to Japan to study Aikido with Morihei Ueshiba, O-Sensei, the founder of Aikido.

In Tokyo he developed a close friendship with Itsuo Tsuda Sensei. While he was in Japan he also studied Zen with Yasutani Roshi and Meguro Roshi, natural farming with Masanobu Fukuoka, and received a certificate as a Seitai practicioner from the founder of Seitai, Haruchika Noguchi.

After O-Sensei’s death, he continued his study of Aikido and became a close disciple of the 10th dan Sensei Michio Hikitsuchi with whom he also studied Kototama and Shinto. He served as well as an interpreter for Hikitsuchi-Sensei while traveling abroad.

At the same time in Japan he met and became a friend of the Gestalt-psychologist John Enright and studied with him. Later, in Europe he graduated the training program of the Psychology of Vision. He has studied deeply a ‘course in miracles’ and found many congruences between its teaching and the teaching of Aikido.

Peter Shapiro is currently working to integrate the work of Donald Epstein, particularly Somatic Respiratory Integration, with Aikido and Seitai. He is also working to create an alternative to contact improvisation for dancers based on ki no nagare aikido. Peter Shapiro currently teaches the interpretation of J.S. Bach’s music, and he is the founder and president of the Bach Renewal Society.

He conducts Aikido seminars in Switzerland, France, Spain and the US.