Keiko Fukuda died at the age of 99, she was the first female Judo 10th dan and the last living student of Jigoro Kano Sensei the founder of Judo. Like Sugano Shihan, Fukuda Sensei went to San Francisco and set up her own dojo to spread the spirit and knowledge of Judo in the USA.

Aiki Kai (Australia) Students selected to participate in the IAF demonstration of Aikido at the World Combat Games in Beijing September 2010.

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Browsing through YouTube I came across some interesting videos taken from motion capture, each one shows Aikido from a different aspect.

The first video shows the trails left by the wrist and the centre of gravity of nage when performing Irimi Nage.

Ghosting of the bokken when performing kotegaeshi, sort of mouse trails left behind the movement.

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13th to 23rd of May 2010

We are expecting Lydia to be training with us at Olympic Park Dojo on Saturday May 15.

http://www.aikidonsw.org.au/components/com_jce/editor/tiny_mce/plugins/article/img/readmore.png);">The following is extracted from an email from Lydia -

Let me introduce myself first to you. I am a 59 year old Aikidoka and Karateka who has trained for more than 25 years in Aikido as one of the few wheelchair Martial Artists in the world. As far as we know I am the highest ranked wheelchair female martial artist in the world (2nd Degree Black Belt in Aikido and 3rd Degree Black Belt in Shuri Ryu Karate and Modern Arnis). I have trained with many Aikido sensei's in the world, including with Doshu in Hombu and recently again in the Netherlands . I have trained with Sugano Sensei in New York andin the Netherlands, with Kobayashi Sensei in Japan and in Korea, in various other dojo's including Malaysia, Spain, France and of course with Erik Louw Sensei, my own Sensei for many years in the Netherlands (6th Dan Aikido and Shidosha Katori Shinto Ryu).

I will be visiting Australia in May this year to speak and contribute to the 2010 World conference of the Working Group on women and sport that will be held in Sydney from 20-23 May (see their website on http://www.iwg-gti.org/index.php?). I have been asked to give an Aikido demonstration on Sunday 23rd May during sport demonstrations hat will be held between 13.45-17.00 at the Sydney Olympic Park.

My request to you and your dojo is, are you and your colleagues/students willing to participate with me in this demonstration?

And if so would it be possible to have such a demonstration with a majority of female students highlighting in our conference the aspect of female participation within Aikido?

The total demonstration can probably not accede 10 to 15 minutes

As I will be one week earlier in Sydney (arrival on 13th May) we will have time to meet each other and train together in order to feel comfortable with my way of doing Aikido (which is not so much different from that of standing persons).

You can see a short film in which I perform in Aikido and I am attaching a photo that was taken during Doshu's last visit to Holland .