The dojo
Where we train, how the space is looked after, and what you will find when you arrive.
A space for martial arts
Our dojo is a large, open space given over entirely to the practice and teaching of martial arts. It is supervised and run by the technical director and the association's instructors; but because looking after it is everyone's responsibility and not only the instructors', it is the students who maintain and care for it.
The dojo is a good place to study martial arts seriously, and to meet all kinds of people whatever their age, sex or occupation.
How you come in and how you leave
Dojo etiquette, 礼法 reihō, is not ceremony: it is how forty barefoot people share one floor without getting in each other's way. Nobody expects you to know it on your first day, and nobody will correct you unkindly. This is all of it.
- Shoes stay at the edge. You step onto the mat barefoot, always. Leave them pointing outwards so you can put them on without turning round.
- Bow as you step on and off the mat. Standing, facing the front of the dojo, a short bow. It is what separates the street from the place you are about to train in.
- Bow to your partner before and after. Before, you say お願いします onegaishimasu; after, ありがとうございました arigatō gozaimashita.
- If you are late, change, sit in seiza at the edge of the mat and wait for the instructor to wave you on. Do not cross in front of them.
- No rings, watches or earrings, and keep finger and toe nails short. Both hurt somebody, and not the person wearing them.
- A clean keikogi, every day. You train very close to another person.
- No food or drink on the mat, and phones stay in the changing room.
- Everyone cleans at the end. It takes five minutes and it is not the beginners' job: it is everybody's, and the technical director sweeps too.
Your first time, step by step
Arrive fifteen minutes early. We will show you the changing room; put on something comfortable with long sleeves and come out to the edge of the mat. Someone will run you through the two or three things on the list above — nobody expects you to know them.
The class starts seated in seiza, with a bow to the front of the dojo and another between the instructor and the group. Then a warm-up and some ukemi, the falls, which are the first thing you learn and the thing you repeat most. The instructor then shows a technique and you practise it in pairs, changing partner several times. It closes with a breathing exercise and one more bow.
It lasts an hour. There is no score and nobody wins. If something hurts, you say so and it stops. That is all it takes.
The shōmen
The front of the dojo, the 正面 shōmen, is the wall you bow towards. Ours carries a piece of calligraphy and a portrait of the founder, Morihei Ueshiba. The bow is not addressed to a person or to a religion: it acknowledges that what is practised here was built by others first, and that you have it on loan.
At the entrance to the mat there is also a line that is not Japanese in origin: 唱えよ、友、そして入れ, "speak, friend, and enter". Anyone who recognises it will know where it comes from. Anyone who does not has the translation right underneath.
Our spaces
Beyond the dojo itself, Aikido Musubi teaches in other spaces around Barcelona. We currently run classes at the Marina-Besòs municipal sports centre, at the Espronceda municipal sports complex and at the Faculty of Law of the University of Barcelona, bringing aikido to new places and communities.
