Takemusu Aikido of Sebastopol

The only one of us getting a haircut during covid...

It was awfully chilly, but with a little help we managed to successfully attend a seminar with Wolfgang Baumgartner Sensei. Thanks Aviv Sensei, for putting it all together and the AikiSeb crew that made it in person and virtually! @aikidofredericksburg @meshwack @charly.marie.7

Feeling nostalgic for pre-covid keiko. Be sure to turn the sound on as the kiai that day rattled the windows.

An important note on recent events: As a small, all-volunteer organization whose singular goal has been to provide masks to disenfranchised citizens during wild...fires, it's been an easy transition into providing samesaid support during the Covid-19 pandemic and the #GeorgeFloyd #BlackLivesMatter protests in Sonoma County, CA. We love our community and we want every person to feel safe and supported. That's why last night was so shocking. We were honored to attend the Andy Lopez birthday memorial and vigil yesterday afternoon. We had recently been able to acquire folding carts for toting masks and water for long amounts of time with ease. We handed out 3-ply masks, water, and snacks for free. The carts and most of the supplies were purchased out-of-pocket by volunteers. When the vigil transitioned to a march and then a protest, we decided to keep providing support as it was still quite hot and our water was needed. At the 8 o'clock curfew, we handed most of our supplies off to our volunteers who have been trained in basic emergency medical techniques. Their role was simply to assist the public with the effects of tear gas, chalk rounds, flash bangs, rubber bullets, and general exhaustion that sometimes accompany protests. We later learned that at around 10 p.m. our all-volunteer, non-violent medics had been arrested, and all of our supplies were confiscated or disposed of by the Santa Rosa Police Department, including unopened bottles of water, packaged masks, and one of our carts. We also learned of the arresting officers working without masks through pictures and videos provided by the Press Democrat and through witness testimony. Over 100 people, including our medics, were put into multi-person jail cells without proper PPE, many of them quite young. We can safely assume that a portion of those people were exposed to Covid-19 directly as a result of the unprofessional behavior of the police. What Mask Sonoma represents is one path to providing simple, positive support to their community. All we have ever strived to do is find a need and help address it, and we would like to continue to do so without threat of harm or even death by those who should be positively addressing needs as well: the police. We ask that the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, the Santa Rosa Police Department, and the Sonoma County Sherriff's office do their part to keep safety-oriented volunteers out of harm's way. For some, it could be a matter of life or death. Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Lynda Hopkins Susan Gorin James Gore Supervisor Shirlee Zane Petaluma supervisor David Rabbit @santarosapolicedepartment @sonomasheriff

Beeeeeeees!!!! @brwndragonbee The dojo got several thousand new uchideshi today. Thanks, Angel!!