July 26-29 Twin Cities Aikido Center hosted some Japanese High School students from Osaka, Japan under the guidance of Motoshi Mizowaki with Kazuma Sakamoto and Shigeki Ooka.
The kanji they left has the first characters Ai and Ki from Aikido. The 3rd symbol is the symbol for the number 3, and the 4th symbol has a variety of interpretations. Apparently it is an old Japanese font, so it doesn’t have an easy interpretation. One gentleman said it represented the 3rd time they visited us. Another interpretation is “completetion”. Another interpretation is the 3 different levels? of aikido.
Mizowaki Sensei brought a beautiful katana with symbolism he felt appropriate to our dojo.
More to come, but the tsuba (the sword guard) contains an eagle representing the United States, in the tsuka (the handle) there is a centipede which is a poisonous insect that doesn’t go backwards, the sword is beautifully balanced which will make a nice sound if cut properly, even though the edge is not sharpened.
