Takeda Yoshinobu shihan's seminar - Day 1

From left to right, Chui, Takeda shihan, Zizi and Miles

There are supposed to be 2 sessions on the first day of 2 hours each, first in the morning and second in the afternoon. Half of the first session was taken up by formalities where the President and representatives of Yayasan Indonesia Aikikai, the Deputy Minister of Sports and other distinguished guests were invited to the opening of the seminars. Speeches were given and also in the spirit of promoting martial arts silats masters and practitioners from 3 schools of silat were invited to give a demonstration at the opening ceremony.

The difference between this seminar and the other seminars that I have attend was that we were told to forget about our waza. (!!!) Takeda sensei's aim in this seminar was to guide us to realize and bring forth our energy from within and harness it in complement to your waza training. Your qi is something that is intangible, unlike waza which you can see and practice upon. Therefore it is not surprising to find that certain aikidokas don't or find it difficult to conform or even accept this method of training.

We were told to visualize everything that we were doing during the seminar, when gathering, locking your energy and the energy around you, connecting with you uke(s) and moving together as one. It was difficult initially to visualize such an image because we usually only find it in places like comic books or animation. Takeda sensei gave us many opportunities to see and feel what it was like to be feel and be connected to his energy. From the viewpoint of an outsider or skeptic it may seem that there is a gullible group of persons who were psychologically lured into believing what he saw or felt, but I personally believe what happened at the seminar.

It was a different plane of training altogether and I am glad that I attended this seminar. Aikido is not just a martial arts of self defense but it is a way of life. As a beginner in aikido I want to absorb and learn as much as I can.

As long as you open your heart and is ready to receive, you will ALWAYS learn something, right until your last days.

Group photograph session with Takeda shihan and foreign participants. From left to right, Miles, Zizi, Paul, Aaron, Abas, Hector, Hakim sensei, Takeda shihan, (not known), Daniel,(not known), myself, Jean Rene sensei, Takeda Daiyu sensei and Berin sensei.


with Emilia sensei who is a co dojo-cho of
Dojo Sakura


Registration on day 1

Venue of the seminar, Indosat building.