Aiki Extensions
Table of contents
Martial arts of peace
To Our Members,
We at Aiki Extensions hope that the new year and decade have treated you well, on and off the mat. We are looking forward to working with you to expand AE's work in 2010 and beyond. One of the most important ways we can do this is by connecting you to the people who are actively working to incorporate aikido into every-day life.
On that note, I am happy to share with you the accomplishments and projects of three of our board members: Aviv Goldsmith (5th Dan), Kayla Feder (6th Dan) and AE interim president Robert Kent (4th Dan).
Aviv's new eco-friendly dojo has won high accolades from the Environmental Protection Agency and other groups, as recently covered in a local press release. Among the praise-worthy elements of this 72,000 sq. ft. facility are "its innovative site design, which features low-impact stormwater management, a wildlife habitat area and a small greenhouse." Congratulations to Aviv, and we hope to hear about more developments like this from our other member dojos!
Kayla Feder’s Berkeley, California dojo will be hosting a 24-hour weekend Gasshuku for children. The event will not only offer 6 classes with 5 Bay area instructors over the two days, including a chance for more experienced students to experience live-steel tameshigiri, it will also provide 3 meals, Ben & Jerry’s Imagine Whirled Peace ice cream and a sleepover, The event is also a fundraiser for the Peace Camp Initiative, run by Gasshuku organizer and AE president Robert Kent, which brings Palestinian and Jewish youth leaders from the martial arts community (all participants in Budo for Peace programs) to an American summer camp in upstate Pennsylvania. In addition, Robert will be granting student AE memberships to all registering participants. We encourage those of you in the San Francisco Bay area to take part!
We would also like to take this time to to invite you to the 6th International Aikido Summer Camp in Zurich. It will be "an Exploration of relationships beyond culture, nationality and religion in the spirit of “Training Across Borders,” and all are welcome. It will take place from July 26th – 31th 2010 in Zurich, with open training from August 2nd - 5th 2010.We are happy to hear about events such as these and share them with the rest of the AE membership, so please send all announcements, no matter how brief, to staff@aiki-extensions.org and we'll send them in out in monthly updates.
With peace,
Danny Sanchez
Project Coordinator
Aiki Extensions, Inc.
Please give feedback via email to staff@aiki-extensions.org
If you are here to add content and you don't know where it should go, please try searching for a term from the title or theme of your piece and see what pages pop up to choose from.
| “In aikido we do not train to become powerful or to throw down some opponent. Rather we train in hopes of being of some use, however small our role may be, in the task of bringing peace to mankind around the world.” - Morihei Ueshiba, O'Sensei, Founder of Aikido
"Aiki-Extensions is the 21st Century iteration of how O'Sensei
envisioned Aikido's role in global peace. AE is in direct lineage to
his vision and it is thus playing out what his vision projected in a
world marked by transforming technologies and new epidemics of strife."
- Richard Strozzi-Heckler
Please click on the menu to your left to go deeper. | |
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An all-time record of 3001 falls, taken over 7.5 hours, was set by Aiki
Corps veteran Mark Walsh on September 26, 2009. His Ukemi Challenge,
executed at a Bridge Seminar in Brighton, UK–with five senseis
including AE Director Quentin Cooke–raised $1,000 for the AE project of
his choice, the Awassa Peace Dojo. Mark described his grueling
experience as the aikido equivalent of running a marathon. | Click here for Aiki Higher Education and here for notes on that gathering's thoughts on AE's future. Click here to see a video on AE's history by Founding President, Don Levine. Click here to track AE members around the world. Click here to read or help us track AE Buzz. Want to see AE web history over the last decade? |
| Click on these words for Awassa Youth Campus and Peace Dojo - United States Tour Information
| |
This site may seem a bit messy.
It is our Member Wiki and changes all the time, without waiting for much oversight, so all our voices may be heard.
The official AE position (requiring time to get to consensus and convert that into policy) may be different from what appears here.
This is not a problem.
We exist as an organization because martial arts taken beyond the dojo offer essential leadership and contribute to peace in our time around the world. Sometimes that moves quickly and sometimes not so much.
Aikido
is unique in being created to make martial arts identical with the
practice of peace itself but many other martial artists from many other
arts train and teach with this end in site. If you share even a part of
this practice AE is here to serve you.
An overhaul of the AE official website is in progress. Phases one and two are complete and include dues-paying members being able to sign in once again to update their personal information on our roster, a direct payment (no Pay Pal) feature for dues (and soon donations) - leading soon to the use of international currencies, and the addition of memberships available to dojos and groups. Phase three will involve the creation of an AE Online Marketplace that includes event registrations. The new shopping cart feature will allow you to sell your books and aiki-related products to bring income into your pocket and a small percentage of each purchase to build AE for the long term.
Gratitude to outgoing AE Executive Director Brandon WilliamsCraig for his service through 2008!
To go to our central, organizational website, click here
or here for: dues, donations, member roster, resources, and projects
Aiki Extensions is your organization. Where are your fingerprints on it?
Have you chimed in on the Bulletin Board lately?
You can follow what's going on in our office minute-by-minute during work hours using Twitter and user ID aikiext. If you'd like to add a Twitter function to your Firefox browser (instead of text messages to your mobile) we recommend the TwitterFox extension. Follow us and we'll return the favor for real time networking and collaboration.
All members are entitled to a two paragraph profile in the AE international newsletter, please develop one on your wiki memberpage here and include 1) a brief biographical summary 2) details about your vocation and recent work. Email [ editor at aiki-extensions.org ] when you are ready to be included! Please update your user page whenever possible with new information and a small but recognizabley current photo. Always feel free to send suggestions to us via [ staff at aiki-extensions dot org ].
Please let us know the moment you feel moved to support your area's AE cluster or any project. There are manageable contributions to be made all over, but we have to know you are interested.
We are a 501c3 public charity (not-beholden-to-financial-profit)
devoted to support the extension of the arts of peace from their native
environments into our strife-filled world. While an aikido background
is not by any means required to contribute to this work, the voice of
the community practicing aikido in dojos all over the world is unique
and has a specific kind of message it must deliver, side-by-side with
other martial arts being taught so that they lead to peace for everyone
involved. Peace can be practiced and learned, and must be carried
beyond the school where the learning began.
While this is the work of many organization and individuals, this particular co-created website (wiki) is provided for the community by the people who form the Aiki Extensions organization around the world. The menu to the left of this page will lead deeper into this co-creative space. The links at the bottom of this page lead to the more formal AE public website. If you are an AE member contributing to this site, please sign-in for access. If you would like to contribute to Aiki Extensions in any way please join us. All members receive an invitation to contribute to this wiki. For any needs beyond general access, please email us at [staff at aiki-extensions dot org].
Strengthen, Deepen, Extend
Aiki Extensions seeks to strengthen existing efforts by constructing networks, enhancing communications, and providing resources; to extend those efforts to new sites and situations; to extend the aiki way into other areas of application; and to deepen the philosophical and pedagogical foundations of aikido as a human practice.To find out more about the way Aiki Extensions achieves this aim, click through the projects listed below:
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