Welcome to South Austin Aikido

On Saturday, January 26th, we had a pot luck dinner at the home of Darrell White to celebrate the New Year as well as the recent Dan promotions. The evening was very special for us all with lots of good food and energy!

Congratulations to Todd Kammerer and Tommy Kammerer who were both promoted to Nidan and to Tim Schmelter who was promoted to Shodan. Each of these test candidates did a wonderful job in preparing for and performing during their tests. I should also mention that each of these guys also contribute a lot of time and energy to the dojo, whether it is in working with newer students, teaching classes or running the business side of the dojo operations. We all owe these guys a lot of thanks for their efforts as Aikido is more than just about training for each of them.

It was recently pointed out to me that we have had 8 Dan promotions in the last 13 months beginning with Denne Reed in November of 2007 and followed by Brian Kammerer, Chad Leath, and Darrell White in December of 2007. Congratulations to these guys as well for a job well done on their Shodan tests.

Wow!! 8 promotions that is a lot to celebrate and celebrate we did with our ceremonial eating habit. We shared a lot of good food and had a great time hanging out together. The party was well attended with 32 people sharing in the festivities. During the party I was presented a very special gift of an Iaito and Katana from our Aikido community. The wife was always afraid of me having a Katana so it would have to be by gift for me to have one. The gift is certainly appreciated and I thank you all for being part of our very special community.

Click here to see the pictures.