Volunteers Needed for ASU Media Archive Project!
In recent years, ASU has begun to identify and preserve the enormous amount of video recorded of Saotome Sensei and his senior students. As the collection grows, there’s an obvious need to catalog the video contents to make these gems available to our community. We’re also exploring creative and useful ways to present the information from these instructors.
One such project has been active for a few years. The ASU Video Archive YouTube channel holds video and photos of senior instructors who have passed away to keep their memory fresh for those who knew them and available for those who didn’t have the chance to see them.
It’s a large undertaking and we’d love to have you join in any of four ways:
- Contribute videos you may have
- Digitize videos we’ve received on VHS tape or older media
- Watch videos and make notes on the content. This task isn’t ready yet for widespread participation but we’d be eager to get in touch when it’s time.
- Propose uses of the video footage.
If you wish to register your interest in volunteering for such tasks as they come up, please use the form at https://forms.gle/sYjuX6osYKPcRpHZ8. We’ll be in touch!
The Instructional Committee is very pleased to announce the start of the ASU Mentorship Program!
The goal of this program is to support the next generation of ASU Aikido instructors as they work to know Saotome Sensei and his aikido better and to help them improve how they share that knowledge with their own students. While the people in this group are generally committed to leadership and teaching roles in the ASU community, they don’t have that much direct experience with Saotome Sensei. This is often because they started too late to see Sensei in his prime, and have little or no direct contact with him now. The ASU Mentors will help fill that gap. Mentors are first generation students of Saotome Sensei who had significant direct experience with him over time and are also experienced teachers themselves. Through this program, currently in its pilot phase, selected “mentees” will be paired with a mentor who can help them better understand Saotome Sensei and his Aikido through their tutelage. These mentees, this next generation of ASU Aikido instructors, will then be better equipped to carry Sensei’s example into the future.
If you are a dojo cho/chief instructor and are interested in being mentored, please contact Melissa Bell (melissa.eileen.bell@gmail.com) for more information. If you are a first generation student of Saotome Sensei who had lots of hands-on experience with him while he was still in his 30’s, 40’s or even 50’s, and you are an experienced instructor, please reach out to Melissa if you are interested in being a mentor. We will gladly share more of the program criteria so you can see if you would be a good match.
ASU Future Committee Survey
The ASU Future Committee consists of a small group of dedicated Aikido students from ASU dojos across the country. We range in age from 16-40, and we all started training as teens or young adults. We have been meeting frequently since January to collect data and propose solutions about what ASU can do to retain students. As a result of our meetings, we have created a survey for all members of ASU to learn about when they started training, what attracted them to Aikido, what kept them going, and what challenges or barriers they encountered in their early years of training. This helps us understand what attracts people in different age groups to Aikido and what helps or hinders long term study.
To complete the survey, email thefuture@asu.org and request a link!
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