Pictures of our events

The Inter­nati­o­nal Aiki­do Marathon in Pra­gue was really big! Around 120 peo­ple from almost 20 coun­tries par­ti­ci­pa­ted at IAM in Pra­gue. Peo­ple came from Japan, USA, England, Spa­in, Sweden, Roma­nia, Mal­ta, Fran­ce, The Nether­lands, Ukra­i­ne, Hun­ga­ry, Aus­tria, Ger­ma­ny, Ita­ly, Slo­va­kia, Czech repub­lic… you name it. And tho­se aiki­do­kas were both young or older, men and women, begin­ners and teachers.

The­re were 24 aiki­do clas­ses in 24 hours – some par­ti­ci­pants made them all, some did much less. The goals of aiki­do marathon were to practi­ce toge­ther, to face ones own challen­ges, to sup­port each other on his or her way, to meet new peo­ple, to inter­con­nect peo­ple throu­gh aiki­do. All this and much more had hap­pe­ned on and off tata­mi during that day and night.

Len­ka, 18-years-old high scho­ol stu­dent said about it: “I would say that the Aiki­do Marathon brou­ght me a beau­ti­ful and unfor­get­table expe­ri­en­ce, a unique explo­rati­on of how fati­gue affects me – and a huge sur­pri­se, because the tra­i­ning sessi­ons and the unique atmosphe­re char­ged me so much that (despi­te all my ini­tial assumpti­ons) I kept practi­cing over and over, nights, mor­nings… and enjoyed it so much 

At the same time, I think that I also lear­ned in the “actu­al” aiki­do practi­ce, the chan­ging dyna­mics (thanks to the brisk chan­ge of tea­chers and the­ir sty­les) added ano­ther ama­zing dimensi­on to the aiki­do marathon. I expe­ri­en­ced (for me) com­ple­te­ly new appro­a­ches and what’s more, I found ele­ments to take away in each one…

The more I think about it, the more I belie­ve that put­ting all tho­se won­der­ful impres­si­ons into words is impossible…”

We practi­ced enthusi­asti­cally and explo­red possi­bi­li­ties of body and mind, taking one tra­i­ning sessi­on after the other. We obser­ved the sun setting down in the eve­ning, we still practi­ced when it came up the next mor­ning. We were tired and hap­py at the same time, sup­por­ting each other, wor­king our ways to the end.

And then the fee­ling of relief and satis­facti­on came.

From many feedback from tea­chers and par­ti­ci­pants we know – it was very unique expe­ri­en­ce for all of us.

Many thanks to all of you who par­ti­ci­pa­ted and made this cele­brati­on of aiki­do possible.

 

Clas­ses were held by these instruc­tors: Zden­ko Regu­li (6. dan, Czech Repub­lic), Malo­ry Gra­ham (6. dan, USA), Gas­ton Nico­les­si (6. dan, Fran­ce), Anthea Pas­ca­ris (6. dan, England), Nor­bert Hochstras­ser (5. dan, Hun­ga­ry), Anne Slui (5. dan, The Nether­lands), Mag­nus Bur­man (4. dan, Sweden), Iri­na Gaş­par (4. dan, Roma­nia), Misha Rogach (4. dan, Ukra­i­ne), Ive­ta Sudo­ro­vá (4. dan, Slo­va­kia), Mar­tin Švih­la (5. dan, Czech Repub­lic), Van­da Švih­lo­vá (4. dan, Czech Republic)

 

Big thanks for sup­port: Czech Fede­rati­on of Aiki­do, Aiki­do Aka­dé­mia Koši­ce and many other orga­ni­zati­ons and dojos!

More pho­tos and videos can be found at Aiki­do Marathon face­book.