Aikido Association Atlanta

06/05/2026

06/05/2026

Four members of our dojo’s Mugai Ryu iaido shibu are in Japan for a special training event at Koyasan near Osaka.

05/31/2026

Saturday morning aikido led by Bob sensei

05/19/2026

Aikido World Alliance Spring Camp with Andrew Sato Sensei, 7th Dan Aikikai Shihan. May 2026.

05/19/2026

Last week we had the Aikido World Alliance Spring Camp with Andrew Sato Sensei, 7th Dan Aikikai Shihan at our dojo. This event was held over four days, Thursday through Sunday.

Thank you to everyone who attended the camp. We realize seminar attendance can be a "burden." The costs including transportation, lodging, food, and the seminar fee can be substantial. Time away from work, family and other obligations are not to be discounted. The physical discomfort from training, being sore the next day and the rigor in the routine are real.

With that said, here is why you should attend a seminar anyway.

Aikido seminars and camps matter far more than most people realize. They’re not just “extra training sessions” — they’re the engine that keeps the art alive, evolving, and connected across dojos, generations, and lineages.

Seminars are where you feel the living lineage of Aikido.
A senior instructor’s timing, presence, and body organization can’t be fully captured in words — you have to feel it.

They transmit the art in a way regular classes can’t. Seminars are where you feel the living lineage of Aikido. A senior instructor’s timing, presence, and body organization can’t be fully captured in words — you have to feel it.

Seminars give students:

- Exposure to different interpretations of the same principles

- Hands-on correction from higher‑ranked teachers

- A deeper sense of what “good Aikido” actually feels like

A weekend seminar often equals weeks of normal training because:

- You’re training in longer blocks

- You’re focused, away from daily distractions

- You’re working with unfamiliar partners who expose your habits

Students often come home with:

- Sharper basics

- New insights into timing and distance

- Renewed motivation

- For instructors, seminars are essential for staying sharp and avoiding technical stagnation.

Seminars build community across dojos. Aikido is famously non-competitive, so seminars become the “gathering place” of the art.

They:

- Strengthen bonds between dojos

- Create friendships that last decades

- Help small schools feel connected to something bigger

- Encourage cross-training and collaboration

They preserve organizational standards as many seminars are used for Dan testing, Instructor certification, Technical updates, and Maintaining consistency across regions.

This is why Godan and above are typically the ones teaching seminars — they’re the custodians of the curriculum.

They inspire the next generation

Seminars and camps create the “big moments” students remember:

- Their first time taking ukemi for a senior teacher

- Their first camp away from home

- Their first dan test

- Their first time training with 100 people on the mat

These experiences anchor people to the art emotionally.
They’re why students stay for 10, 20, 30 years.

Below are a few pictures from the camp. There is also a link for those wanting to see all of the pictures or download them for your collection. Thank you to Lori Johnson for being our photographer.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/jfoKAojKtcJeHqms9

05/04/2026

In Aikido, the techniques don’t grow old—we grow into them.

What begins as a sequence of steps slowly becomes a study of timing, then a study of connection, then a study of intention. The same ikkyo you learned on your first week becomes a different technique at your first year, and a different one again ten years later. Nothing about the mechanics changed, yet everything feels transformed.

This is the quiet gift of Aikido:
the deeper your understanding becomes, the more the familiar opens into the profound.

A technique you thought you had “learned” reveals a new layer of softness.
A movement you believed was about control becomes a lesson in letting go.
A form you practiced for structure becomes a doorway into freedom.

Aikido teaches that meaning isn’t found by chasing new techniques—it’s uncovered by returning to the old ones with new eyes. Each repetition is a chance to notice something subtler, to refine something smaller, to align a little more closely with the principles that shape the art.

When you revisit a technique, you’re not repeating the past.
You’re meeting the present version of yourself.

And that version is always capable of seeing something you couldn’t see before.

05/04/2026

In Iaido, progress rarely arrives in dramatic leaps. It comes in the quiet moments—when you repeat a cut for the hundredth time, when you adjust a single angle by a single degree, when you choose to refine instead of rush. Consistency is the forge where skill is shaped, and attention to detail is the whetstone that keeps the edge sharp.

Every draw, every noto, every step is an opportunity to polish something small. And when the small things are polished, the whole form begins to shine. The body learns what the mind has studied. The sword moves because you have shaped the movement through steady, deliberate effort.

Iaido rewards the practitioner who shows up, even on the days when the cuts feel heavy or the kata feels stubborn. Each repetition is a quiet promise to yourself: to improve, to refine, to walk the path with sincerity.

Mastery isn’t hidden in secrets or shortcuts. It’s built in the rhythm of daily practice, in the discipline to notice what others overlook, and in the patience to correct what only you can feel.

04/26/2026

Here is the flyer for our upcoming Spring Camp to be held at our dojo on May 14-17. All affiliations are welcome! Register online at https://www.aikidoworldalliance.com/registration

04/26/2026

If you keep polishing suburi and the fundamentals, everything else in Iaido becomes cleaner, calmer, and more honest. Kata doesn’t improve because you “try harder”; it improves because the underlying mechanics get sharper.

04/15/2026

From this day in 2012. Blast from the past!

4/15/2012 - Eiji Katsurada Sensei Seminar at our dojo.