KEITH'S HOME IN CYBERSPACE

Aikido Training

My training began at Emerald City Aikido in March of 1994. For some information about Aikido, check out The Aikido FAQ page. For me, Aikido is a pacific path representing an alternative to being a victim on one hand and the cycle of using violence to stop violence on the other hand. True human interaction becomes a requisite when force is no longer a threat and the do, or the path, helps develop these interaction skills. Children can benefit from Aikido as well as adults. At my school, children start learning movement, spatial awareness and balance skills as early as fours years old.

Most Aikido pages include quotes from the founder, Morihei Ueshiba. This is my favorite. If I remember correctly, Satome Sensei, a student of the founder is paraphrasing O'Sensei as follows:

Maybe in an earlier century the concept of world harmony was thought to be an exercise in logic. People couldn't fully understand that a thousand miles away there was a culture completely different from their own, different customs, different lifestyles, different spiritual focus. They didn't see the problems in communications, or the way the actions on one side of the world politically, ecologically, or economically influence the other. But now, in the twentieth century, people have a different perspective. Through the medium of technology we know the relationship between great bodies of land connected by immense seas, lying under the same sky. We've seen different cultures and studied different languages, and we cannot step back; we must continue to evolve and find peaceful and healthy solutions to the problems of our rapidly shrinking world.

I have made purchases from Bu Jin Design and was very happy with them. Books, videos and Aikido Today Magazine can be found at Arete Press.