William Gleason Sensei at De-Ai Aikikai, Ottawa, Ontario, CANADA

Hiroshi Ikeda in Nashville, TN

Extending Aikido Off the Mat: 2nd Annual Aiki Extensions Conference

Aikido Seminar with Frank Doran in Switzerland

Aikido Seminar with Frank Doran in Switzerland
April 8th-16th, 2000

Contributed by Armin Mueller*

The 12th seminar with Frank Doran Sensei, 6th dan, from California was held at the university Irchel gym in Zurich on the weekend days and in several dojos in the evenings during the week between. Monday evening at Aikido Zurich, Kurt Bartholet's dojo, Tuesday at Aikikai (Herbert Looser's home dojo), Thursday at Aikido Lucerne (Armin Mueller's home dojo) and Friday at Aikido Kreis 6 (Alfons Loetscher's dojo).

On both weekends there were between 60 and 80 participants working with a lot of fun on the mats. We also had several international guests from Israel, USA, Morocco and Germany. During the week classes the atmosphere was more familiar because of the limited sizes of the dojos.

At the second Saturday was the usual party with tons of good food prepared by chef Herbert and his helpers. Also this time we all got a perfect dinner and had a great time chatting about the last week experiences in a cozy environment.

Sunday noon we finished another great seminar with Doran Sensei after 21 hours of precise and fun Aikido practice. Thanks again for Doran Sensei for supporting the growing Swiss Aikido family and Herbert Looser for having tough weeks organizing the whole event.

*Armin started with martial arts in 1977 and with Aikido in 1981 and is yondan. He is teacher at Aikido Lucerne and Aikido Sursee, Switzerland. He was influenced by different Aikido teachers such as Saito sensei, Ikeda sensei, Endo sensei and mostly Doran sensei. He has trained with Doran sensei since 1989. As a freelance software engineer he often gets the opportiunity to practice at Aikido West.