Whistlekick is a weekly podcast that focuses on the martial arts through interviews and focused discussions. Past guests include Chrisine Bannon-Rodrigues, Dave Kovar,  Mike Chat, Tony Blauer, Victor Moore, Freddie LaPan and many others.

As the site seems to be becoming more and more popular (especially via the YouTube channel I think), I tend to receive more and more requests for participation in various projects. Given my geographical location and my schedule, it is sometimes difficult to accept everything, but when a request does not require that I invest hours and hours of work, I do my best to participate. Until then, I did not know much the podcast format, but my recent participation in the Scientific Skepticism program on the subject of the history of aikido made me realize the interest and the importance of this medium. Indeed, the format podcast is particularly convenient to produce since it does not require image, only little editing, and little post-processing. It also reaches audiences who may not be able to read long articles or view videos on YouTube, especially those who commute by car, etc.

In February and March 2016 I travelled to Japan for the first time. My main goal was to practice at Hombu Dojo as much as possible for one month and a half. Inspired by one of the young black belts at my Dojo back in Switzerland, I had started to plan my trip in 2015. During my preparation time (but also during my stay in Tokyo), I consulted Guillaume's article about Aikido practice at Hombu Dojo. For all matters concerning accommodation, subscription and required behaviour in and around Hombu Dojo it proved to be an invaluable pool of information! Of course I would not presume to have gotten through the first weeks without my share of "Faux-pas". Although some were probably due to my particular pre-condition: Not only did I speak only very basic Japanese, but I also held the rank of a 3rd Kyu only, and thus was basically an absolute beginner at Aikido. After a while though, it also struck me that being a woman (and a white belt at that) held in store a couple of extra-hoops to jump through (so to speak). I therefore suggest this (obviously quite subjective and personal) addition to Guillaume's already rather complete article.

As an amateur researcher on the history of Aikido, I am lucky to have direct access to some of the last great Masters, direct pupils of O Sensei. Last weekend, I spent some time with Isoyama Hiroshi Shihan and we discussed the evolution of Aikido since the decision was made to present it to the general public. We talked, among other things, about the role of a number of pioneers, including André Nocquet (read his biography here). André Nocquet is known to have contributed greatly to the spread of Aikido in Europe, but his role for the promotion of art in Japan is less known outside the archipelago. Tada Hiroshi Shihan, another pioneer of Aikido and meticulous archivist, had also spoken to me, a few months before, of the role of Nocquet in Japan. In fact, when he learned that I had made my Aikido debut in the group created by Nocquet, he went home to fetch some documents, which he then gave me. Today, I would like to present some of them to you. They consist of four newspaper clippings dating all the way back to 1956, revisiting the role of André Nocquet and the French Embassy in Japan in the promotion of Aikido and Judo. I would like to thank Tada Shihan from the bottom of my heart for letting me present these invaluable documents.

The association between Tokyo's Shinjuku ward and the headquarters of the Aikikai world is obvious to pretty much all practitioners affiliated to the organization. Indeed, the imposing five-storey building welcomes hundreds of practitioners from around the world each year, including most of the highest ranked instructors. However, fewer people actually know the history behind its location. In fact, it was not until the founder of aikido, Ueshiba Morihei, reached the age of 48 that he permanently established his dojo and organization in the Shinjuku ward in the area that we know today as Wakamatsu-cho. In this article, I would like to take you back in time and look at the history of the establishment of aikido's headquarters in Tokyo.

I am regularly asked questions by readers on the subject of the influence of Chinese martial arts on the technique of O Sensei. On this, as well as other unlikely theories, my default stance is that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and I usually don't elaborate further. The decision of ​​writing an article addressing the question materialized when practitioners offered me a book called "Le Rituel du Dragon – Les sources arts martiaux" at the end of one of one of my seminars in Paris. The author, Georges Charles, is one of the pioneers of Chinese martial arts in France and in his book, goes back to the source of Chinese internal martis read to be very interesting but in spite of its many merits, I must admit that I have some objections regarding a passage where Georges Charles explains that Ueshiba Morihei, the founder of Aikido, derived his incredible technique and his mastery of ki not from his training in Japanese budo, but from the teaching that he may have received from great Chinese masters. Georges Charles goes further by claiming the existence of a sort of conspiracy aimed at denying this legacy.

In my previous article, I discussed the fact that we, as aikidoka, we spend most of our time practicing with a partner within a codified framework called katageiko. One could therefore tempted to think that progression in aikido is dependent on the presence of a partner to train with. However, a lot of the progression in other disciplines such as Chinese arts or even some modern budo like karate seem to take advantage of a large proportion of solo training. One can therefore start to wonder what is the part of the collective versus the individual in our practice of aikido, and most importantly, whether it would be desirable to further develop a solo practice.

While some martial arts emphasize the solitary development of both form and physical qualities through the practice of kata and suburi, aikido is practiced almost exclusively with a partner. What derives from this observation is that most of the learning in this discipline is therefore dependent on the willingness of a person (uke) to put his body at our disposal in order to facilitate our progression. What is even more specific to aikido is that even when one assumes the role of uke, one remains very much within a process of learning. In fact, as we shall see, it is within this role that a large part of the learning takes place. Unfortunately, this often leads to a number of misunderstandings, partly because of the antonymic notion of the opponent / partner, but also because of the fact that etiquette serves as an underlying framework within which all interactions between the two take place. In this article, I would like to discuss the nature of the relationship between uke and tori in aikido and to investigate the parameters that govern it.

When reading an article or a definition about aikido, one obviously finds a great deal of information about its founder, Ueshiba Morihei. Many of our teachers often look up to this man they never met in order to justify not only technical, but also moral choices. However, what few people know or accept is the fact that aikido, as it is practiced today around the world, owes not only to Morihei, but also to a large extent to his son Kisshomaru. In reality, Morihei never really systematically taught to anyone (a topic that would be worth an entire article) and it is Kisshomaru whose task became to ensure that aikido could be appreciated and understood by the general public. Without his work, it is likely that the majority of us would not know aikido today and that the art would either be practiced in a confidential manner, or would have disappeared entirely. Ueshiba Morihei having relocated far from Tokyo during the middle of World War II, Kisshomaru had, in the midst of a very unfavorable period, to take over from a genius father, but one whose character and life choices were far from easy to follow. Today I would like to tell you a bit more about the second doshu of aikido and to review the extent of the work he has accomplished when succeeding to his father, hoping to make you understand the reason why he is rightfully regarded, in Japan and elsewhere, as the true father of aikido as we practice it today.

Half a century after the death of its founder, Aikido has expanded to an extent that Ueshiba Morihei would hardly have imagined. This development can be measured not only in terms of number of practitioners and countries in which Aikido has taken foot, but also in terms of the influence that the intrinsic message of this martial art originating from Japan has had on the world's collective consciousness. Yet, and this is unavoidable, the number of students who knew O Sensei is shrinking day by day. In contrast, many non-Japanese experts have reached a level of seniority that is similar to that of the most advanced Japanese teachers. Some of them have trained at the Hombu Dojo, while others have never stepped on a Japanese tatami in their whole life. The founder and his successors shaped Aikido as a system of techniques and values that could be exported and spread outside of the Japanese socio-cultural context and therefore, one can legitimately wonder what is the place of Hombu Dojo today, when the center of gravity of global Aikido seems to be ever shifting away from its birthplace. In this article I propose to share with you my experience at Hombu Dojo, to describe what it can bring to a foreign practitioner, and to give you some guidance on what could be your expectations, and what will be your duties as a visitor if you decide to finally make it there. My goal is clear: I hope inspire you to take the leap and come practice in Japan. Note that throughout this article, I will try to make the distinction between the Aikikai Foundation and the operations at the Hombu Dojo. I am a student of the Hombu Dojo and although it serves as the headquarters of the Aikikai Foundation, my opinion will focus only on what happens on the tatami, not the organization to which it belongs to, and even less its affiliated branches.

I trained for a short time at the Kodokan, and then, for several years, with Tokaidai Sagami high school’s judō team. Tokai Daigaku, a huge complex of university campuses was the pre-eminent judō power in Japan, coached by some of its greatest former champions. They recruited students from all over Japan into their high schools. To give the reader an idea of the level of skill and power of these young men, we used to line up by weight to bow in. At that time, weighing about 100 kilos, I was not even in the middle of the approximately forty members of the dōjō—there were several close or equal to my two meters in height, and at leasty six young men, aged seventeen and eighteen, who could regularly defeat their own coach, a 36 year old sixth dan. Among my greatest achievements in martial arts training was during a workout with their star, a two meters, 150 kilos young man, expected to be the successor of Yamashita Yasuhiro. (He tragically and suddenly died of sudden-onset leukemia in his senior year.) I was an English instructor at the school, in my mid-thirties, and a relative beginner at judō, and he was surely taking it easy. I caught him off-guard in a kouchi-gari (inside reap) and managed to get him wrong-footed, up on one leg. While saying, “Nice move, Sensei!” he regained his balance, and instinctively whirled to throw me in a seionage that rattled my DNA all the way back to my long-dead grandfathers. I’m not sure if I’m prouder to have momentarily off-balanced him or of surviving the throw.

Where do myths begin? Jungian psychologists assert that myths reflect primordial patterns within the unconscious. Myths, therefore, impose a one form of order on chaos. This order is based in both reality and illusion, like the stars in the sky, subject to both the science of astronomy and the illusion of astrology. Myths are the constellations of the human mind.