AIKIDO LIBEREC

Kita no Yama Jori Takemusu Aiki Dokokai, also known as the Community of Friends of Takemusu Aiki from the Northern Mountains, is an aikido community based in Liberec, Czech Republic. It focuses on practicing aikido in its full breadth, with roots in Takemusu Aiki Iwama-ryu. The group’s approach includes systematic training in fundamental techniques, or kihon waza, as well as weapons practice, or buki waza, using the bokken, jo, and tanto. Members meet to train three times a week.

The community’s former teacher was Shihan Edmund Kern, an eighth-dan aikido instructor from Fürth, Germany, who died in 2017. For 19 years, members regularly attended his seminars and uchi-deshi training stays at his dojo. Kern had studied for 18 years with Morihiro Saito, himself a long-term student of aikido founder Morihei Ueshiba and a guardian of the tradition. The community shares information about training, dojo etiquette, teachers, aikido texts, examination requirements, and its activities through photographs, videos, and publications.