Finland Aikido's 30th Anniversary Celebration Seminar
October 28-29 2000
With Shihan Yasuo Kobayashi and Shihan Toshiyuki Arai

Contributed by Tuomas Martikainen*

Finnish aikido had its 30th anniversary celebration last weekend. Aikido in Finland started in 1970, when on Trygve Forssten's initiative Toshikazu Ichimura Sensei from Sweden came over to give two demonstrations. Trygve was a student in Stockholm at that time and had been involved in aikido for a couple of years.

Since that time Finnish Aikido has developed tremendously. Today, there is one national federation (Finland Aikikai) which has about 60 clubs and 3.500 aikidoka.

It all started with Ichimura Sensei's aikido (a student of Nishio Sensei), who returned to Japan in 1986. The major influences after him have been Yasuo Kobayashi, Kazuo Igarashi, Seishiro Endo, Shoji Nishio, Hikitsuchi, Gerard Blaize, Christian Tissier and Tetsutaka Sugawara Senseis.

Outside the national federation are two or three ki aikido clubs, that have enjoyed mainly the teachings of Kenjiro Yoshigasaki Sensei.

Now there is even one Daito ryu Takumakai branch dojo (the first in Europe) dojo.

Aikido folks have also introduced or contributed to the arrival Muso Shinden ryu iaido and Katori Shinto ryu (Sugawara Sensei) to Finland.

The weekend of October 27-29 was the main event of the anniversary. The event took place in Helsinki and included a seminar, demonstration and an evening party.

Teachers at the seminar were the Japanese guests Yasuo Kobayashi (8th dan) and Toshiyuki Arai (7th dan) and Finnish teachers Juhani Laisi (5th dan), Petteri Silenius (5th dan), Jarkko Lapinlampi (4th dan), Miranda Saarentaus (4th dan) and Tryggve Forssten (3rd dan). Most of teachers held just one training session.

The idea of the seminar was to get many impressions of the aikido done in Finland, have a good time and, basically, enjoy. It was not meant to be a regular seminar, and within this framework it succeeded. There were over 200 attendants and it was one of largest aikido gatherings in Finland ever.

There was a lot hard work done to make both the demonstration and the evening party very special. 500-600 people watched the celebration and there was brief national T.V. coverage on the seminar as well. In the evening we enjoyed the shows of a magician and (burning) stuntmen and the lovely performance of a beautiful band, Higher Ground Sisters.

All in all, the weekend was a massive success and it set a new standard for future events.

*Tuomas Martikainen is Information Secretary of Finland Aikikai. Reprinted with kind permission of Aikido-List.