New “Soto Deshi”, Martin Weber

“My aim is to concentrate for a while only on Aikido and find a deeper connection to it. I am sure that I will leave Suzuki Sensei’s future classes the same way I Ieft the last ones: sweating and smiling.”

• Name: Martin Weber
• Age: 28
• Position: Soto Deshi
• Country: Germany

I met Lia Sensei on her European tour in Bonn, where she stayed for three days. The first time I saw her was watching her give teens class. It was a great joy watching her. She had them running, rolling, doing techniques and laughing. I was able to feel the energy from outside and I saw the kids sweating. These two aspects proved to be very similar to the adults classes over the next three days.

Her warm up was typically traditional. During class, every time she showed a technique she did so with several ukes, so that many of the participants were able to feel her way of leading the uke through the technique and holding the contact without any physical power.

After this first lesson on Friday in Bonn I decided to follow her not only the rest of the weekend, but also to her seminar in Duesseldorf. Some evenings we got together at a restaurant with big groups and she told stories of her 10-year stay in Japan as an uchi deshi of Takeda Shihan.

All the training days, the joy during the classes and her positive nature made me decide to follow her a bit longer to her dojo in Los Angeles to learn all these interesting deeper aspects of aikido that she showed us during her stay. My aim is to concentrate for a while only on aikido and find a deeper connection to it. I am sure that I will leave her future classes the same way I Ieft the last ones: sweating and smiling.

Those who wish to train with Martin will find him attending classes at the organization’s Los Angeles dojo most days and the Santa Barbara dojo every Wednesdays during his stay.