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| AE is coordinating efforts to establish a week of peace-focused aikido classes in dojos worldwide every September (in conjunction with the the UN Peace Day on Sept 21 each year). The Aiki Peace Week website hosts a map of participating dojos, a press kit that each dojo can use to help get publicity for their efforts, and aiki-peace lesson plans for those that want them. | ||
Experienced Aikido practitioners volunteer to help provide Aikido training for kids living in situations of poverty or violence. Aiki Corps placements have made a difference in San Francisco; Awassa, Ethiopia; and Sao Paulo, Brazil. |
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Aikido practitioners from conflicting ethnic groups have come together to practice and over the course of their contact have transformed their relationships with their former enemies and created friendships. Aikido practice enhances communication between groups beset by chronic political and social tensions. Encouraged by experiences of AE members working with inter-ethnic communications in Cyprus, Bosnia, Israel, and Ethiopia, participants in this project hope to build bridges by promoting training opportunities for Aikido practitioners from groups normally separated by rigid ethnic or national boundaries. Two ongoing projects are detailed below and on their own project pages: |
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| The Salaam Shalom Aikido initiative aspires to create joint Palestinian Israeli aikido training centers in order to build bi-communal ties and strengthen inter-cultural relations. | ||
| The PeaceCamp Initiative brings Israeli and Palestinian youth leaders to one of the oldest summer camps in America (Camp Susquehannock, founded 1905), where they forge the bonds of friendship and trust the next generation of leaders will require if there is ever to be lasting peace in the region, | ||
| Aikido practice has proven its ability to foster communication between groups beset by chronic tensions. Aiki Extensions sponsored training opportunities for Greek and Turkish Cypriots in 2005. Croatian, Muslim, and Serbian practitioners trained together throughout the Sarajevo meltdown in the same venue, where Arabs from three countries and dozens of Israeli Jews trained as well. Aikido training for Bosnian leaders outside the country led to peace-building projects every year since 2004. | ||
Aiki methods are very effective in helping survivors of abuse recover from trauma. Teaching the Aiki elements of body awareness, calmness, empowerment, compassion, and self-protection has a great deal to offer as a complement to traditional psychotherapeutic approaches. Paul Linden, Ph.D., whose website has downloadable papers and books
on the topic, is an Aikido instructor and somatic educator working
to deepen understanding in this area. |
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| AE members work to improve existing Aikido programs for kids and encourage more dojos, youth groups, and schools to start such programs. AE sponsors a bi-annual Aiki Kodomo Kenshukai (“Teaching Aikido to Kids”) workshop. The most recent such event was in October 2008 in Berkeley, CA, and DVDs from this event should be available around June, 2009 – get on the list for more info. | ||
| A Peace Dojo is a martial arts school in which martial practice is explicitly oriented towards teaching skills of non-violence, conflict resolution, and peacemaking. Martial practice is uniquely valuable for practicing peace because attack/defense drills offer the opportunity to train oneself to receive an opponent in an empathic and harmonious way. | ||
Aiki
Extensions members oversee committees on a variety of additional
focus areas. The complete list of current committees, with
email links, appears below: |
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| Organizational Development | ||
| Membership - Individual | Membership - Dojos | Website / Wiki |
| Newsletter | Publicity | Product Development |
| Networking | ||
| AE international Conferences | AE DE (Germany) | AE UK |
| Peace Building | ||
| Mideast AIkido Project | Training Across Borders | Peace Dojos International |
| Aiki Corps | ||
| Youth Outreach | ||
| Awassa Peace Dojo | Harmony in Action - Brazil | Alternatives to Youth Violence |
| Education and Healing | ||
| Aikido for Kids | Aikido in Secondary Education | Aikido in Higher Education |
| Aiki Healing | Aikido with Disabilities | Pedagogical Issues |
| Aiki Music | Research | |
| For more information about any of these initiatives, please contact the committee chair at the email provided. If for any reason you do not get a reasonably prompt reply, please send your inquiry to our staff | ||
