André Nocquet was a man of both sword and pen. A former resistance fighter and a pioneer of martial arts, he was one of the first foreign students of Morihei Ueshiba and the very first to have lived under the roof of the founder of Aikido. With this unequaled…

This is the second part of the interview I conducted with Ellis Amdur, instructor in traditional Japanese martial arts and crisis intervention specialist. In this section, Ellis and I discuss about his work as a de-escalation professional, his strategies, the…

In my last article covering the Aiki Taisai in Iwama, I had made the promise to report on it, so here are the highlights of the 51st All Japan Aikido Demonstration that was recently held at the Nippon Budokan. There, more than 8,000 practitioners from all…

On this first weekend of February 2008, Christian Tissier came to teach a seminar in the beautiful city of Brussels. He was invited by the French Association of Aikido (AFA); it had indeed been a few years since Christian Tissier had not stepped on the…

This is the second part of the series of articles on my first trip to Japan in May 2008. It is day two, the night has been short and full of surprises (not the least of which was an earthquake shaking their bed for a whole minute in the middle of the night)…

I recently took part in a Taiwanese documentary dealing with life in Japan since the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. The journalist, Hsiu-Ching Airy Hsiao, kindly sent the whole footage that they shot on that day, including a short Aikido demonstration…

Miyamoto Tsuruzo Shihan is one of the senior instructors teaching at the Aikido Hombu Dojo in Tokyo. He holds the rank of 7th Dan Aikikai. A French team came last winter to shoot some videos at the Aikikai and they were kind enough to send me some screen…