I regret to announce that Alan Ruddock Sensei, direct student of O Sensei Morihei Ueshiba has passed away last night in Dublin. I would like to extend my most sincere condolences to all his family and friends.

Alan has been a very inspirational teacher and a good friend over the years. I might not be practicing Aikido today if I had not met him over 10 years ago, at a time of great uncertainty in my practice. I will remember fondly our encounters in Ireland and England, particularly the long evening discussing about what Japan and Aikido were when he was there and what they are today. If you did not have the chance to know Alan did for Karate and Aikido in Ireland, read this interview that he kindly agreed to do with me and meet a true giant of Aikido.

I had conducted this interview with him in 2008. I was starting an Aikido magazine at the time and as always, he was very supportive and agreed to let me interview him in order to get the magazine started. I hope that you will enjoy it and if you did not have the chance to know him, that it will allow to know a bit more about this very special gentleman.

This is the full speech that His Majesty the Emperor of Japan gave on Sunday 11 March 2012 during the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami memorial service that was held at the National Theater in Tokyo, Japan. I filmed it at Shinjuku Alta Studios where the whole ceremony was broad casted onto the giant screen facing the station.

Every year, the AikikaiHombu Dojo holds a kangeiko (寒稽古), a special period of training taking place over the coldest days of winter. During this 10-days period, practitioners are encouraged to practice every day for at least one class. This year, the kangeiko took place from the 23rd of January to the 1st of February.

Olivier Gaurin is one of the most well-known French Aikido practitioners. His atypical path and his ease with words have made him one of the prominent voices of our martial art in France. Olivier Gaurin has been living in Japan for many years and he got the chance to practice with some of the greatest masters such as Seigo Yamaguchi and Kisshomaru Ueshiba Sensei. He speaks Japanese fluently and has a deep understanding of the Japanese culture, which he enthusiastically shares with other practitioners through a series of books that he wrote about the practice of Aikido. I met with Olivier Gaurin on a summer evening at his Tokyo apartment and we discussed during several hours about his martial journey and his views on Aikido while sharing a homemade pizza cooked by the "Captain" himself.

Eight months have passed since March 11th 2011 and the Great Tohoku Earthquake which triggered a tsunami that devastated the eastern coast of Japan and provoked the worst nuclear incident since Chernobyl. The initial fears and the foreign media frenzy now over, one could now think that all is back to normal in Japan. From inside Japan however, things are still far from normal, even for those who were fortunate enough to live several hundreds of kilometres away from Fukushima and its crippled nuclear power plant. One of the main problems that all people have to face is to ensure their family’s safety as regards to the food that they consume. While the entire population of Japan is concerned, foreigners are a lot more susceptible than any other as they might not necessarily be able to access or understand crucial information regarding to the provenance and relative safety of the food that they purchase.

Thanks to the impressive investigative work carried out by Stanley Pranin, the influence of Daito-ryuAiki-jujutsu in the development of Aikido is now fairly well know and understood. This has led some Aikido practitioners to focus their attention towards learning the Daito-ryu techniques in order to complete what they might regard as a certain lack in nowadays' Aikido teaching. Among these, Olivier Gaurin, a long time student at the AikikaiHombu Dojo and author of several books on Aikido decided to continue in Mr Pranin's footsteps, to learn the ancient techniques and to promote them to the Aikido public. I had been aware of Daito-ryu Aiki-jujutsu for many years through the work of Stanley Pranin but it is Olivier Gaurin who introduced me to the Daito-ryu teachers of the Takumakai school and it wasn't long before we both decided to document our experience, which eventually came under the form of the following documentary.

I often receive emails from people seeking information about practising at the Hombu Dojo. Unfortunately, I don't always have as much time as I would like in order to answer each of them properly so I thought I would try to address these issues formally in an article. For many practitioners of Aikido it is a dream to one day, have the chance to train the Aikido World Headquarters in Tokyo. Hopefully, this dream can eventually become a reality as more and more people travel each year to Japan in order to study at the AikikaiHombu Dojo for a few days, weeks, or even months. While some might be lucky enough to travel with a Sensei or a Sempai who knows the ins and outs of the place and who can act as a guide, others might make the trip on their own and for them. The prospect can be a source of great challenge and excitation but it can also be the cause of a few worries. Some of the most frequently asked questions are: where am I going to stay? What should I bring? How much does training cost? Which classes can I attend? What are the rules that I should be aware of?