Another amazing Aikido seminar with Mark Larson Sensei was held at Tatami Studio Winnipeg Aiki Shuren Dojo from October 20–21, 2018!
Mark Sensei always delivers the best traditional aikido as he was taught by his Sensei, The Late Great Morihiro Saito Shihan.
The seminar started with keiko/class for the aiki kids and youth, and they absolutely loved it! They thought it was awesome to be able to train with the adults and to be taught by Mark Sensei directly. They especially thought it was ‘epic and legendary’ when Mark Sensei threw Ama Sensei in an iriminage technique!
The Adult Keiko started directly after the kids and youth class, and as always it was great to train with ALL of our awesome aiki-friends! Without Mark Sensei we would not get the opportunity to train with all of the aikidoka we have met throughout the years attending his seminars. We all come together because of Mark Sensei’s wickedly awesome aikido skills, HUGE HEART, great humor and awesome stories of the days back in Iwama, Japan from the 9+ years he spent training daily directly with his Sensei, Morihiro Saito Sensei.
It was so great to have the many affiliations represented at this years seminar; Iwama, Aikikai, Ki Society, and other martial arts such as Judo, Jujutsu, Karate and Taekwondo. We had over thirty Aikidoka on the mats, representing Japan, Argentina, Columbia, Denmark, Sweden, United Kingdom, Canada (multiple provinces), USA (multiple states such as Minnesota, North Dakota, Tennessee, Penn State, New York, Virginia and Nevada).
A big shout out to ALL of you for travelling from far a wide to come to the seminar this year! We had so much fun hosting all of you!
We hope that everyone had a great time, and hope you will all be back again next October 18–20, 2019. Save the date!
Aikido is not only about training for us, it is also about the friendships we make with every single one of you...you are ALL family to us, every single one of you! Thank you for taking the time to come from far and wide to be with us. We know that it’s not always an easy thing to do, with family commitments, work and finances, so we have much gratitude to you all for coming and supporting us and Mark Sensei.
We also want to send a HUGE thank you to all of you who purchased items we had for sale to fundraise for Mark Sensei’s new dojo Shushinkan of Minnesota Aiki Shuren Dojo. We sold traditional Aikido mugs, 2018 Seminar T-shirts, Winnipeg Aikido t-shirts and weapons (bokken and jo’s). A HUGE thank you to Mark Sensei for taking the time to personalize the weapons by branding Takemusu Aiki and signing them with his Japanese name Takuto, the name Saito Sensei gave him in March 2000. Read more
It was so awesome and I was honored to watch and help Mark Sensei with the branding process! The name Takuto, it is such a fitting name for Mark Sensei, Saito Sensei knew exactly what he was doing without a doubt when he gave Mark Sensei the name. Takuto means LEADER, but different than an ordinary leader. This type of leader receives a tradition – austerely trains, maintains, instructs, and selflessly shares it with great vigor and spirit in order to keep that particular tradition alive. The preeminent leader (or teacher) who preserves a traditional way or craft (i.e. traditional Aikido). Comparable to this definition, when it comes to a traditional craft, the master carpenter who is entrusted to build a Japanese shrine or temple. All the weapons (bokkens and jo’s) have sold out, but we still have a few seminar t-shirts (black L and 2XL), Winnipeg Aikido T-shirts (white L) and three mugs left! If anyone would still like any of these items, let us know, they make great gifts!!
Check out the Tatami Studio Facebook and Instagram pages for more photos of the Winnipeg 2018 Aikido Seminar. Thank you to my good friend Ray Babb for taking great action photos of everyone at the seminar!