 |
||
|
The divine beauty
Of heaven and earth! All creation, Members of One family. - Morihei Ueshiba / The Art of Peace (114) |
||
 |
For many years, Danielle and I talked of travelling to Europe in the Spring for Doran Shihan's annual Switzerland Seminar. This year we finally made it! Our first stop was to visit friends in Dublin, Ireland. No sooner had we landed from our trans-Atlantic flight than we were on the mat! At left: Me, Danielle, John Rogers (6th Dan, president of the Irish Aikido Federation), our friends Helma and Brendan. At right, Brendan, Helma, and Danielle at the upper lake, Glendalough. 'Twas sunny and in the 60s (a heat wave, by Irish standards)! |  |
 |
A few days later we flew to Frankfurt, rented a car and drove down to Zurich, with a quick side trip enroute to Strasbourg for lunch. Upon arriving in Zurich we were met by Herbert Looser Sensei and his wife MaryAnn, Natalie and Michael, and Doran Sensei for a wonderful home-cooked dinner. The next day, Doran Sensei (by now an 'honorary' citizen of Zurich, I should think) played "tour guide" for us and showed us some highlights of the city: where to find the best breakfast, the best spa, the best Italian restaurant, the best hot chocolate shop, etc. |  |
 |
The great part of the seminar schedule is that Wednesday thru Friday the training takes place in the evening, leaving the daytime open for exploration. We were also blessed with exceptional weather (I understand it is a tradition for Sensei to bring it with him from California) - sunny and mid to upper 70s the entire week. The class on Wednesday evening was held at Aiki-Kai Zurich. Thursday's class was in the city of Luzern, so Danielle and I took a morning train for the 1 hour trip from Zurich. |  |
 |
We spent the entire day strolling along the river that runs through the center of town, stopping for "second" breakfast; then a bit further along, a cappucino to write postcards; a bit of shopping; then lunch; then afternoon coffee... All in all it was a very enjoyable day in a very beautiful, picture-postcard city. That evening the training was held at Armin Müller's dojo, Aikido Luzern. We spent the day on Friday seeing how many of the places Sensei had shown us on Wednesday we could now find on our own.☺ |
 |
 |
Friday's training was held at Alfons Lötscher's dojo, Dojo Zürich 6. After class, as on previous evenings, a large group met at a nearby restaurant for dinner. The weekend training was at the University, with over 100 attendees. Saturday night was the traditional pot-luck party (to which the Czechs brought some home brew fire water - whew!). We met great aikidoka throughout the entire seminar and made many new friends. The classes were energetic, insightful, challenging and, as always, mixed with Sensei's great humor. |  |
 |
Danielle and I continued our travels, driving through the Alps (awesome) to Venice, Italy and then to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany for several days of vacation. By the way, if you drive, I highly recommend taking a GPS! The most rewarding aspect of my years of practicing Aikido has been the friendships and the experiences I've had in many wonderful places. I have shown up with my gi at dojos all across the U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii, Australia, Austria, Ireland, England, Japan, and now Switzerland. And I have always been met with a welcome that has made me feel like a family member coming home. I highly recommend attending this seminar next year if you can! And if you can't, then go whenever you can. I'm sure you will find the Aikido, the dojos, the people, places, and the experiences to all be quite memorable. |
 |