Hans Balmer

Member of the technical commission of the AIKI-KAI ZÜRICH

When I started Aikido in 1980 I had no clue how much this would influence the rest of my life. I was not interested in neither martial arts nor exotic rituals and I was for sure no good student on the mat. Not ambition nor will power were the reason for sticking to Aikido. It was rather that I felt very good after every single lesson.

I started looking for the secret of these exercises and participated in seminars with different teachers, many of them were direct students of Morihei Ueshiba. They differed a lot in their way of teaching and their personalities, but all of them had an impressive power and radiation, a precision and effortlessness. I began to study various (traditional and modern) methods of developing body-awareness. That is why my today’s understanding of Aikido is influenced by experiences from Vipassana, Zen and Feldenkrais and also inspirations from other teachers such as Dürkheim, Krishnamurti and others.

For me, Aikido is a way to overcome compulsivity and arrogance, an alternative to the never ending circle of fear and violence in which we all are trapped one way or another.