Below are a collection of memories on why we started practicing Aikido
“I started practising Aikido whilst at university. I was looking for something that would keep me physically and mentally active for a few nights a week. I wasn’t particularly worried about being attacked in the streets, nor in the claims of the power of Ki which was a popular idea at the time; I was just looking for something that gave me a little cardiovascular exercise, some stretching for my muscles, a little impact stress for my bones, and especially something social where I could work and learn with other people rather than compete with them. After looking around, Aikido seemed a great fit.”
“There was an aikidō club in the town I grew up in. It was the most elegant thing I’d seen. The stark contrast of black and white, the worn-out, austerous look of wooden weapons – I had no idea of what ‘wabi sabi’ might possibly mean, but Japanese anime had prepared me to recognize it when I saw it – the millimetric precision of gestures, the apparent effortlessness of techniques. The teacher, I’d learn years later, had been uchi-deshi for Saitō Morihiro sensei. But I was nine, and classes were adult-only, so I turned to judō, where kids were welcomed. I did judō for many years and then gongfu, and then I dropped martial arts altogether as I had seemingly more pressing interests (university seminars, guitar playing, medieval poetry, girls). But then, one morning – I was forty-five by then, with a two year-old daughter, and we were both coming out of months of lockdown – I was just browsing Facebook and the algorithm, who knows me better than my mom, thought it best to show me a Ki Aikidō dōjō at walking distance from where I lived. I called the sensei and the following Monday I was on the mat. I’m still (and now my daughter too)”
“My wife found it first. After our son was born she stopped work. She had had a busy social job as a sales rep with many large central London businesses as clients and now her world had shrunk dramatically to focus on her new baby. After a while she felt she needed something to help her re-build her social confidence. By chance, a work colleague of mine had just started practicing Aikido, which I had never heard of, and he told me that his teacher ran “Ki Weekends”, courses based on the teachings of Koichi Tohei, which concentrated on the co-ordination of mind and body and incorporating this into the practice of Aikido. My wife attended one of these courses and then progressed to attending Aikido classes. When I saw how interesting and beneficial this all was, I signed up for a “Ki Weekend” myself. We were now both hooked. From then on we both took turns looking after our son and going to Aikido classes every week.”
“having practiced martial arts in the past, I was looking for something phisicallly and mentally stimulating that I could continue into older age and I found in aikido the perfect match”