Getting started · Aikido Musubi
What a class is like
An hour on the mat, start to finish and with nothing dressed up: when you arrive, what happens in the first fifteen minutes and what the room is like. If you have never done aikido, this is the page for you.
Come and try See the schedule Two trial classes · free enrolment
Home What a class is like
The essentials
The essentials
- When
- The beginners' class is Tuesdays, 19:30 to 20:30 at Aikido Musubi, with Pablo Martín.
- Where
- Aikido Musubi, Av. d'Alfons XIII, 351, 08918 Badalona, Barcelona
- Who for
- Adults and young people from 12, with or without previous experience. There are no fitness tests and no minimums.
- What to bring
- Comfortable long sleeves and long trousers, and flip-flops for walking off the mat. Nothing else.
- How much
- The first two classes cost nothing and enrolment is free. After that, 35 € a month.
Minute by minute
Your first hour
This is the Tuesday beginners' class, 19:30 to 20:30, at the Badalona dojo. The others are much the same.
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You arrive
Changing rooms on the left. You do not need to arrive already wearing a keikogi.
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You step onto the mat
Flip-flops stay at the edge, pointing outwards. You step on barefoot and you bow: a short bow facing the front of the dojo.
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It starts
Everyone in seiza, kneeling in a line. One bow to the kamiza and one to the teacher. It takes twenty seconds.
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Warm-up
Mobility for the wrists, shoulders and hips, because aikido asks a great deal of the wrists and they get prepared properly. Then footwork: moving from the centre, turning without crossing your feet, stepping in and out of the line of an attack.
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Ukemi
Learning to fall. It comes first and for months it is the main thing. You start by rolling from the floor, with no height and no hurry.
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The first technique
In pairs. One attacks, the other answers, and after four goes you swap roles. Your partner will have been practising for years and will adjust to you.
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And the ones after it
A class works through several techniques, nearly always related to one another or starting from the same attack. That is where you begin to see that they are not separate techniques but variations on one idea.
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It closes
Seiza again, a bow, and everyone helps mop the mat. That is part of the class too.
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Afterwards
Somebody will ask you how it went. That is the moment to say you understood nothing: everyone started there.
The room
The dojo
The mat is ours alone
We do not share the room with other associations. Our dojo is an independent space given over 100% to martial arts and run by the association alone, so the mat is always down: nobody lays it out or takes it up in order to train.
120 m², high ceilings, heated and cooled
A great many martial arts are taught in small low rooms, sometimes in a basement without a single window. This one is not: high ceilings and windows, so the air moves, and heating in winter as well as air conditioning in summer. Forty people fit on the mat and an ordinary class is considerably fewer, so there is room to fall without working out where the next person is.
Before and after class
Besides the mat there is a room with sofas, a fridge and cold drinks, which is where the evening usually ends up. The dojo has been fully refurbished and is looked after constantly, and that part, the part afterwards, is half of what brings people back.
Changing rooms, parking and finding us
Changing rooms on site and free parking. The dojo is inside the Badalona Sud sports facilities and it is hard to find the first time: there is a plan with the three entrances on the Access page.
Is there room for me?
A safe place
You can get in by wheelchair
The dojo is on one floor and there is not a single step, either in the facilities or in the room itself. It is not adapted, because there is no specific equipment, but it is accessible: you can get in and move around unaided. If you need to know something particular before you come, ask us and we will tell you exactly how it is.
There is room for everyone
You train with whoever you are paired with, and that means everyone: ages, bodies, backgrounds and ways of living. This is a safe place for LGBTQ+ people and for anybody else, and not as a slogan: it is the condition for practising here. If somebody does not understand that, their problem is with us and not with you.
Doubts
What holds you back
«I am not fit enough»
You do not need to be. You start by falling and by moving, and fitness comes from practising rather than the other way round.
«I am going to get hurt»
The first months are ukemi: learning to fall without hurting yourself, from the floor and with no height. Nobody is going to throw you on your first day or in your first month.
«I do not know anyone»
You practise in pairs and swap partners several times a class. In an hour you will have trained with half the room whether you meant to or not.
«I will be the oldest, or the youngest»
From 12 and with no upper limit. On the same mat there are people who started this month and people who have been at it for twenty years, and that is on purpose.
«I do not speak Japanese»
The words are learned by hearing them. And if you want a head start, the glossary has every one of them that gets said in class.
«What if I do not come back?»
Two free trial classes, free enrolment and no tie-in. The odd thing would be knowing whether you like it before trying it.
We will be expecting you
Write to us a day ahead, tell us which class interests you and we will tell you when to come.