Czech Aikido Federation
Contributed by Vanda Navratilova*

Hallo everyone!
This is a short tale of history Aikido in the Czech and Slovak republics and my hometown dojo.

A rapid growth of Aikido started after the year 1989, when the Communistic era in my country ended. There were some practitioners before, I am sure, but I don�t know anything more about it.

In the Czech Republic Aikido dojos are divided in many groups and organizations. Czech Aikido Federation (CFAI) is the one which my dojo belongs to.

History of CFAI started after French Aikido sensei, Daniel Vaillant (5th dan) came in 1991. A lot of current teachers, including our current president of CFAI, Ondrej Malina (3th dan) were his students. There are other 3th dans in CFAI, but no one reached more than this rank. Slovak Republic is very similar to my country. Their current best teacher is Zdenko Reguli, 3th dan as well. CFAI co-operates with the French Aikido association (FFAAA). Our shihan is Franck Noel (5th dan). Many French Aikido teachers have been coming to hold seminars through the year.

My dojo was founded in the 1992 by two karateka. At present it is the biggest dojo in our region. I started to practice in 1997. I am, you know... We train every day for one hour. We have children lectures too. Once a month we try to hold a seminar, inviting some of the Czech Aikido teachers. But for deeper Aikido studying there is a need to visit another seminars of more advanced teachers abroad.

My opinion is, that one of the best ways to get theoretical knowledges about philosophy and Aikido background is through the internet. That is why many of the Czech and Slovak aikidokas have been studying and translating Aikido texts on many websites.

The book production is very low. The best we can do is to obtain English versions of the famous ones. Many people here have been trying to translate and provide them to another aikidokas.

So, lets rock!