Trip to Japan part 1: Arrival in Tokyo

The beginning the month of May saw the realisation of a very old dream of mine. As far as I can remember, I have always been interested in Asian countries, in particular Japan, and always had the wish to travel there. The way things turned up, it ended up happening much later than I had hoped, at the age of 27 and after 12 years practicing Aikido. In fact, things happened quite quickly and without me giving it much thought. A group of students from the Dublin Aikikai Aikido, led by Cyril Lagrasta had been plotting a trip to the Aikikai for some time and quite spontaneously, I ended up buying myself a ticket along with them, never mind my PhD thesis that I was supposed to be working hard at completing.

During the weeks that separated the purchase of the ticket from the actual trip, I have wondered frequently if my interest for the country had not worn off with the years of unfulfillment of this childhood's dream. In fact, when the long awaited date of the departure finally arrived, I was quite disappointed to realize that I did not feel as much excitation as I had expected.

It is in the company of Cyril Lagrasta and his students that I board the plane that is to bring us to the Nippon archipelago after an 11 hours journey east. Quite obviously, we spend a great deal of the flight time talking about Aikido practice and making plans about which teacher and which class we will attend to as well as what locations we will visit.

Please click here to read the full article Arrival in Tokyo

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To go further:

Trip to Japan part 2

Trip to Japan part 3

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