Every year the Gothenburg Aikido Club welcomes uchideshi from all over the world to train aikido with the chief instructor, Shihan Ulf Evenås 7 dan. In January 2011, sixteen aikidokas stayed as uchideshi for five days. They lived together, cooked together and slept on the tatami. Most of them have been here before. Many people have also met Ulf Sensei at his seminars around the world. Ulf Sensei is an internationally known teacher and one of the most well-qualified in the world. He has taught at 500 seminars in 20 countries – on five continents.
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Gintaras Sabukas Sensei 4 dan, from Vilnius, Lithuania. He has been practising aikido for 18 years and is the dojoleader at the Ulf Evenas Aikido Center.
Gintaras Sensei has been uchideshi in Gothenburg 10 times and has been to several seminars with Ulf Sensei in Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic and Sweden.
”I came here for the first time in 1999. We had a ken-keiko and was doing first suburi. Ulf Sensei said ”hanmi”. I changed a little and he said “no, hanmi”. I couldn´t understand what I had been doing those six years I had been training aikido.”
”When I came to aikido I came from other martial arts. Today aikido is part of my life and has made me a better person.”
”Living as uchideshi is comletely different than living as sotodeshi. We do the same things, but the spirit is different. We are like a team, doing everything together.”
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Albina Piddubrivnaya 3 dan, from Aiki Shuren Dojo Saint Petersburg, Russia. She has been practising aikido for 11 years.
Albina has been uchideshi in Gothenburg 9 times and has been to several seminars with Ulf Sensei in Estonia, Lithuania, Russia, the Czech Republic and Sweden.
”Aikido for me is both pleasure and problems. It is a pleasure to live as uchideshi and forget about other things in life. It is a problem because other people don´t share the language of aikido.”
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Christian Taschner 3 dan, from Palzing, Germany. He has been practising aikido for 15 years and is the dojoleader for Takemusu Aikido Schule Palzing.
Christian has been uchideshi in Gothenburg 6 times and has been to several seminars with Ulf Sensei in Germany, Italy and Sweden.
”I came here because I get knowledge from Ulf Sensei as well as good aikido. But you have to be open for the knowledge to be able to get it. I also like the other uchideshi. They come from all over the world and we become like a family.”
”In the beginning aikido was more of a meditation for me. But over the years it has become more of a martial art. A way to purify myself. Ulf Sensei has said, “Aikido is not a way of winning or losing” As a martial art it only works when you think this way. Then it become´s the most powerful martial art. You make peace.”
More pictures from practice and from the sayonara party.