Aikido Technique Videos and Self Defense Training

Aikido is against competition (except for the Tomiki style). The only person you need to fight and win against is yourself. So it's a good thing to get some feedback about how the fight is going. It's good to get some recognition for the level someone achieves which is exactly what gradings are supposed to give you. Yesterday Karesz handed out the grading certificates to people who graded at the end of January. The certificates came from the Hungarian Aikido Foundation whom Karesz visited last week to learn more from his master and get the "paperwork" done :). Congratulations again to the 6-5-4th kyu aikidoka!

He also introduced awards now which work well for the kickboxing children and adults at Holistic: he gave away certificates and medals of achievement in 2007. I got the "Biggest Effort" award for writing the blog, running the children's classes and for whatever he felt I had done right :) so I'm not completely impartial when I'm talking about these awards. It felt good to get one which is good. It boosted my inner ego which is not too good. So I have a double-standard feeling about myself because to get an award that distinguishes you from anyone else can lead to some kind of competition between people in the next year. However, if the award makes you work harder and help yourself improve more, it's good. It seems that by this line I have successfully managed to convince myself that the award is good for me. I wonder how others who haven't received one of the three awards feel about it.

Since the master gave away certificates and he wasn't going to get one for aikido before his next dan grading :), we decided that it was time someone got the "Master of the Year" award, so he received one together with an aikido mug. He immediately put it into use by drinking his Guinness (with blackcurrant) from it after the training. A well deserved drink :D.

I think the smiles on the faces of people receiving kyu certificates, awards, mugs as well as people just training to receive certificates the next time tells a lot about how joyful aikido trainings can and should be.

"Always practice the Art of Peace in a vibrant and joyful manner.

O'Sensei"

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To learn how businesses work and how they should be started, I entered the 'Pitch your idea business plan competition' at the university I'm at. It included a series of one-day courses about finance, marketing, intellectual property rights, etc. and we were asked to come up with a business plan of our own and create a short executive summary of our plan. The summaries were judged and the best 10 got into the final where we needed to 'pitch our ideas', convince the panel of 8 businessmen and -women that our plan was very good. We had to talk for 5 minutes and there was 10 minutes for questions. They it was like in Dragon's den but I haven't seen any episodes from that TV programme.

But why is this interesting to our aikido blog? Because my idea was related to aikido. Initially I just thought I wanted to set up a fictional business and teach aikido - fictional because I wouldn't start a proper aikido class with my 2nd kyu, obviously. So I worked on this idea and soon realized that there isn't too much money involved, so unless I have 40 years experience I won't start a highly profitable aikido business. Just read some of the latest entries from aikiweb by Erik Calderon (titled 'I QUIT!' and 'Aikido SUCKS!').

The modified idea was to do an aikido therapy, which was based on the idea of martial arts therapy. I set up and submitted the new business plan, talked about it in the final, answered questions and received a certificate of participation.

I didn't win but I still won. Not a prize but experience, opportunity to talk to knowledgable people and other students with ideas. I also got a £20 book token which was given to each finalist, a free certificate to put on my wall :), several free lunches and a half-ready business plan with feedback to improve it.

ps. The final took place in a very nice building near Barbican station in London (right next to the building which is used in the Poirot films as the detective's office/home) so I couldn't help asking someone to take a picture of me in the room during the break after my session :).


Have a nice day everyone.