The United aikido dojos for the quality and the high level of teaching and dissemination of aikido in Greece have received honorary recognition from the Japanese federation Aikikai foundation as well as the permission to conduct Dan exams.
The exams are conducted by Panagiotis Agrios 5th Dan Aikikai Shidoin and the three-member technical committee that makes up our organization.
The UAD technical committee constitutes of 3-4 members with a 2-Dan rank being the minimum requirement; it was created to respond to two basic needs in the modern world of Aikido:
Firstly, to support, promote and further evolve Aikido on a basis which does not only lie on technical skills but also on a comprehensive training empowerment. Usually, when one refers into developing Aikido they tend to exclusively focus on the technical aspects. In UAD, however, we are well aware that this is not enough: in order for good instructors to become better and evolve their teaching style they must have a complete methodological arsenal at their disposal.
The lack of such aspect is going to be covered by the technical committee which will organise activities aiming to improve the teaching skills of an instructor, such as:
- Annual seminars with high-ranking instructors from all over the world,
- An annual UAD instructors meeting where all instructors will be provided with the opportunity to teach before a wide range of students.
- Theoretical courses covering subjects such as:
- Teaching beginners classes
- Methodology of conducting the exams procedure
- Targeted feedback to examinees, following the exams procedure
- Teaching children’s classes
- Proper use of weapons and security at class.
- Support the dojos via instructions and classes aiming to proper teaching and enrichment of the syllabus
- Joint exams for the advanced students
- Access to the UAD multimedia material
- Joint trainings with other teachers and dojos, pursuing different training styles
- Travelling abroad to dojos we collaborate with
- The second one is to assist novice instructors of UAD dojos, who have already started to teach, to keep evolving, given that once they start teaching it becomes harder for them to continue training themselves
Quite often, instructors end up focusing almost exclusively on teaching a class in order to develop the skills of their trainees. Consequently, they cannot keep practicing according to the rank reflecting their experience; As a result they start missing out on their technical skills, given that the syllabus they teach is recycled time and again according to the level of their trainees, which is of course lower than their own.
Thus, at UAD we decided to work on that: we will provide, via the technical committee, classes specifically addressed to advanced trainees and instructors. The UAD technical committee bears the obligation to assist, in the best possible way, the trainers work through their new tasks while on the same time they keep evolving and teaching.
If you are an Aikido instructor who believes that learning Aikido is a never ending process, which actually starts when one becomes an instructor, then we are here for you!