Max Eriksson Ohlwein

After practicing Judo for several years as a teenager, I discovered Aikido at the age of 17. Fascinated by its beautiful movements and humane philosophy, I began training under Gerd Walter Shihan at Mehringdamm in Berlin. Ten years later, however, I felt a strong discrepancy between what was happening on the mat and the reasons why I had started aikido in the first place. Around this time, I met Ulrike Serak at a seminar with Endo Sensei in Norway. She had studied with Christian Tissier Sensei for a long time and also knew Seishiro Endo Sensei very well. With her help, I was able to understand the aikido of these two teachers better and apply it to my own practice. It therefore made sense to continue training with her at the Dojo am Gleisdreieck.

SWORD AND AIKIDO

Even before I started practicing aikido, I was fascinated by the samurai’s sword art. However, it took me a while to find an aikido master like Christian Tissier, who also taught authentic sword fighting. It was through him that I discovered the traditional kenjutsu of Kashima Shin Ryu, which he had studied with Master Minoru Inaba in Tokyo.

In 2006, I travelled to Japan for an extended training stay for the first time. There, I had the opportunity to train directly under Inaba Sensei at the Shiseikan dojo in Tokyo. Since then, I have made an effort to visit Japan every year for training.