Aikido Founder Morehei Ueshiba with his longest time student Morihiro Saito
Morihiro Saito with his most senior "gaijin deshi" Bill Witt
Morihiro Saito with son Hitohiro Saito
Morihiro Saito with Aviv Goldsmith	Hitohiro Saito with Aviv Goldsmith and Joseph Sumalbag

Instructor

Joseph Sumalbag Sensei started Aikido in Mertro Manila in 1992 under the instruction of Rolando dela Cruz .  Rolando dela Cruz is a ranking Shorin ryu (Okinawa) Karate, kobudo and Aikido practitioner and a student of the Manila  pioneer Manuel "Omar" Camar. Camar was the student of  Bejamin Galarpe. And Galarpe was the student of the late Harry Eto .

In 1995 he left Manila for Ontario, Canada for a consulting job where he briefly trained with the Ottawa Aikikai group under Don Dickie and senior students. While practicing with the group he  attended a few Aikido classes  in a Canadian naval base with Richard Ostrofsky on an invitation of an officemate.

Due to the proximity of the dojo he left the Ottawa Aikikai to join up with the Ottawa Yoshinkai  in Takahashi Dojo under Margaret Maplebeck . While training with the Yoshikai group, he met and trained very influential teachers such as Yoshinkan's Takeshi Kimeda Shiham (a student of Soke Shioda), Peter Bussel Sensei who was a follower of  Soke Shioda and later Koichie Tohei, and the late Rev William Brickford, a follower of Koichie Tohei.  After completing a year of living in Canada , he left on another job assignment to Minneapolis MN. There he briefly trained with the Twin City Aikikai but later deferred  training with the group to join with the Ki Society under the late  Tony Aducci at the Linbergh Center in Minnetonka MN. After completing his assignment in Minneapolis he was sent on another  job assignment  to Framingham,MA where he trained with William Gleason Sensei in Boston's Shobu Aikido Dojo. He met and trained with several influential individual such as Mitsugi Saotome Shihan and many other senior teachers.  Concurrently with training with Gleason Sensei  he alternately trained with Iwama Aikido instructor Steve Kalil in Worcester.  In several occasion while in Worcester he received a few Daito Ryu transmission from an unknown Japanese guest teacher. After completing a year assignment he moved to Connecticut and continued training with Gleason's student Rob Liberti. He then moved and briefly trained with Yahe Solomon a follower of Chiba Shihan and later  trained with Lawrence Main .

After working for 6 years Sumalbag Sensei left his career as a consultant and moved to the Mid Atlantic region where he started teaching Aikido. During this time he met  Aviv Goldsmith Sensei who became his primary Iwama teacher.He continued his training with Bill Witt Shihan and the senior teachers of Iwama Aikido with renewed interest on Aikido through Morihiro Saito's transmissions