Author: admin

Picnic!

Today was our Plano Aikido Center picnic, at Breckenridge Park in Richardson. Really fun event with good food and good company. Thanks to everyone for coming out!

Chapman Sensei Seminar

Aikido of Denton will host Skip Chapman Sensei, 5th dan Shidoin, for a summer time seminar on June 26th and 27th.  The flyer should cover all details, but if you have any questions feel free to email this address or me personally at the email below my name.

Have a good one,
John Thompson
Dojo Cho, Aikido of Denton
magiccatfish@hotmail.com

Aikido on CNN.com

Everyone that practices Aikido understands how it effects and enriches the rest of their lives. I have had the amazing opportunity to share how Aikido has helped me balance my self and my life in a CNN.COM/Living article. Tricia Escobedo of Peachtree Aikikai made it happen and Mary Fuller influenced my story with her writing expertise. I thank both of them sincerely. This articles was a group effort from three accomplished women, in Aikido and professionally. The report is an expression of our shared experience. Please enjoy it.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/04/15/bernath.martial.arts/index.html

In addition, in conjuction with Kidvision VPK TV in Florida, I have put together a televised field trip to Florida Aikikai demonstrating “The Educational Benefits of Aikido For Children.” This is a wonderful program I have been working on, and this link might help educate potential students at your dojo on why aikido is such a great martial art for kids.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzXt3-DYe_Q&feature=related

Thank You
Penny Bernath
Florida Aikikai
6th Dan
United States Aikido Federation

Building a practice floor

Since our dojo is moving to a new location on Monday, March 1, 2010 (as seen in previous post), we needed to build a new practice floor.  Some of our senior members researched affordable but good floors, and found the following web pages describing Judo floors. After contacting these folks to confirm that they were happy with their floor, this is what we decided on. This will be the new martial arts floor at EC Athletics.

http://judoinfo.com/tatami.htm

http://www.judocalendar.com/denverdojo/Floorsystem.htm

The floor consists of 2 layers of plywood sheeting, sitting on a network of foam cubes. The cubes provide some “give” without being bouncy like springs, and of the course the plywood itself  will give a bit too. The attached video shows us having a good time putting the floor together over the weekend of 2/20 – 2/21, 2010. We had just finished practice and testing at the old facility, so of course we needed some pizza before we got started. You can see the number of people working on our floor. With that amount of help, I would say it took about 3 hours on Saturday to mark the bottom panels and glue the blocks on them, and 2 or 3 hours on Sunday to assemble the whole thing.

So it didn’t take very long, but preparation was the key. We had cut the foam blocks the week before, had the wood and other supplies at the new facilities when we got there, and Sensei had prepared a template to use for marking the wood for cube glueing.

All that is left is to put the padded layer on top of the plywood floor, and finish out the edges — put something around the sides. More pics and video as the floor is finished.

Get the Flash Player to see this video.