Welcome to South Austin Aikido

On Sunday we had a celebration party to commemorate the opening of our new dojo. The new space is a lot nicer that what we had before and we are hoping it will serve us for years to come. As part of the party we had food and a very special cake. During the party, we took time to recognize two people who have diligently served our community for the past six years, Tim Schmelter and Todd Kammerer. Both of these guys have worked hard and contributed a lot of their time to make sure the dojo operates smoothly. In spite of having families and full time jobs they have selflessly taken care of the dojo business operations by keeping records, paying bills, responding to insurance and tax requirements in addition to upgrading our non-profit status. Each of these guys deserves a note of thanks and a pat on the back for working hard behind the scenes to keep things going. Way to go Todd and Tim for all of your efforts and thank you very much for all you do for all of us.

Following the short word about Tim and Todd, we continued the celebration by burning sage and taking a moment of silence to build positive ki into the new space. The sage ceremony was led by Seth Green who smudged each of us in addition to covering the entire space. I think the ceremony was a great success because the training energy has been off of the charts ever since!

Many people contributed to finding and building out this new space. Although, there is still some work to be done we are here and ready to rumble. Thanks to everyone who has come out to help in the build out, we could not have accomplished this without everyone’s contribution. I look forward to seeing all of you on the mat.