In June 2024, Makoto Saito presented a thesis of dissertation at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology titled “Learning Ecosystems for Club Organizations Promoting Member Retention: Personal Networks in Group Training at an Aikido Dojo – Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis.” We are always interested in a broad perspective on Aikido and Martial disciplines, […]
Learning reishiki (礼式), the etiquette that regulates interactions on the tatami, is not that complicated. Those who observe as visitors an Aikido class are usually very impressed: you can feel commitment, you can see order. From the outside, a Dojo appears to be a world as we would like, especially outside the tatami. Reishiki and […]
Among other noticeable publications, Cardiff University Press stands out for promoting a Journal of Martial Arts Studies, a publication exclusively dedicated to studies and academic publications dedicated to the world of Martial Arts. Last July, a contribution by Greet De Baets, professor and researcher of Business Communication at the University of Ghent, Belgium, was published. […]
When we go to the Dojo, we say we are going to train. Or that we are “going to keiko“. Saying “going to keiko” sounds very much like a professional in the Martial Arts. That kind of person who starts to interject an English word for every two Japanese words and who tears his/her clothes […]
What is success? And what are the ingredients needed to achieve it? Analysts from McKinsey asked this question to hundreds of PE CEOs. These people say they are successful managers (and therefore lead successful companies) because: It seems almost too simple. If you only need five ingredients to be a top manager with huge wages […]
Much has been written about the spiral, as a form widely spread in nature and as the foundation of movements in Martial Arts. In our practice, we are all committed to achieve personal improvement, which starts from an improvement in the technical movement that is proposed to us and that, if we teach, we in […]
Excuse me, was your father a thief? Because he stole the stars from the sky and put them in your eyes… During middle school I was in an all-boys section and some claimed that these crazy sentences worked to impress girls. I had dismissed all of this as that kind of absurd attitudes -and terribly […]
Any activity involving two or more people may be seen as an interaction, more or less complex. Since it is not possible to keep an interaction in a constant state of neutrality, the interaction itself generates an exchange of actions, a kind of giving and receiving. It is not possible to come into contact with […]
The average Aikidoka doesn’t like to hear about control. Control seems contrary to spontaneity, it gives the image of a coercive action, of a manipulative and disproportionate use of force. The average Aikidoka really likes to stand in front of a mirror. Not to see himself/herself as he/she is, but rather to flatter and convince […]
In the soundtrack of a famous movie from the 007 saga, Sam Smith sings: If I risk it all, could you break my fall? We have written -and will continue to discuss about that- many times about falling. We can talk about falls from a didactic, technical, experiential, functional, aesthetic point of view… We have […]
