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 ==