Ki to the City

“Aikido was forged in the crucible of war. The Aikido we know bloomed in the era of peace.”
Is it possible to speak of “Post-War” Aikido anymore?
How long were we ever actually living, Post-War?
I want to keep this written intro brief. I have an aversion to trying to write eloquently about grave situations. Everything I could potentially say feels pretentious.
In a situation like this, it’s better to let the conversation speak for itself.
Miles Kessler Sensei teaches out of the Integral Dojo in Tel Aviv, Israel, and this conversation finds him literally in the crucible of war himself, as he speaks expecting sirens warning him to head to the nearest bomb shelter.
(To learn more about Miles Sensei’s incredible background, check out his first appearance. Link
It’s in this real-world context that his profound philosophy—Aikido not as a path of peace, but a path of conflict, with peace as the byproduct of good conflict done well—is called to action.
Miles Sensei’s most powerful application of Aikido off the mat is his frank discussion of trauma. He describes how trauma—whether personal, generational, or societal—causes us to retreat and polarize, locking us into patterns that perpetuate the past.
The ultimate work of the spiritual warrior is to purify this inherited and active trauma, allowing us to hold conflict in a way that becomes the catalyst for evolutionary development.
Miles Sensei challenges us to move beyond the easy binaries of “us versus them,” arguing that true spiritual progress requires us to wrestle with the moral dilemmas of the present moment. When nothing is reliable, the path of practice is the only constant.
He also reminds us that we are not doomed, that there may still be some adults in the room willing to meet the present conflict with a broader, deeper perspective, ready to move humanity forward with a practical, uncompromising spiritual framework for modern existence.


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“Ki to the City” was originally conceived as a way to address the seemingly shaky future of Aikido (specifically, in my own life). In this episode, I’m honored to speak with someone who is not just thinking about the problem aloud but providing concrete, actionable, and expert solutions.
My guest has built a platform (and an app) that achieves what I’ve only vaguely dreamed of: addressing the critical need for a more effective branding of Aikido.
Sasa Starovojtov (from Dokiai Dojo in Ljubljana, Slovenia) is a compelling voice challenging the status quo with equal parts compassion and commercial acumen. His dojo’s name perfectly encapsulates his mission: to offer “another way to look at Aikido.”
Sasa’s path to the mat is as unique as his current contribution. He discovered the art purely by chance, walking past a sign in Prague.
He instantly connected with Aikido’s non-competitive spirit, finding it a soothing balm to the “scorekeeping” mindset that had ruined games for him since childhood.
Over 25 years later, this commitment to non-conflict is a defining feature of his life; as he shared, since joining the dojo, he’s never had to fight—physically or verbally.
Before founding his dojo, Sasa had already carved out a long and successful professional career in marketing, rising to roles like Sales and Marketing Director for a software company and working for world-famous agencies like Leo Burnett. This eclectic background—martial artist and seasoned branding expert—is what makes his perspective on the art of Aikido so vital.
Sasa’s Substack, Aikicraft.org, and his revolutionary new app, Brandician.ai, in my own humble opinion, are essential tools for anyone struggling with how to keep Aikido relevant in their own communities. I implore you to click those links…
He points to real-world data suggesting Aikido could be on a “path to extinction,” while Aikidoka are mostly “marketing to ourselves,” failing to explain the art’s true value to people who’ve never stepped on a mat.
Aikicraft.org is Sasa’s offered antidote, a valuable resource for Dojo Cho who are, like he was himself, left with little practical guidance on how to run, grow, or market a dojo.
Aikicraft is divided into four critical sections: Why we train, The hard look (a necessary criticism of institutional problems), Teach better (advocating for the use of modern sports science), and Applied Aikido (his “Marketing-Do” series).
This work has culminated in Brandician.ai, a powerful web app created with his partners that he’s currently offering for free to the Aikido community.
As he explains on the podcast, a professional branding package for could cost anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000. His ingenious app guides the user through an in-depth process starting with a founder interview, generates a questionnaire to survey customers, and ultimately creates a Brand Hub—a comprehensive guide covering brand strategy, visual identity, and tone of voice, rooted in the art of storytelling.
Sasa’s work is firmly planted in the Jobs to be Done (JTBD) theory from the branding world: many people are not interested in buying “traditional martial arts”—they are hiring us to do a job for them. That job could be to achieve more mindfulness, to be a better parent, or to be comfortable speaking in front of a group of people. Sasha contends that by framing the practice in this way, we can ensure its survival.
To Sasa, marketing is Aikido—a process of harmonization. You can’t fight the market; you must take ukemi and move with it. This dimensional shift in consciousness could be what’s required for the art to once again flourish.
(Until/unless I can find some sponsors ;) Ki to the City remains a reader-supported publication. If you have benefited from this project, please consider signing up to be a paid subscriber to help keep the podcast on “the airwaves.”
If you would prefer to make a one-time contribution, you can email me directly at [email protected].
As a token of my gratitude, and Don Dickie Sensei’s generosity, you will receive a complimentary copy of his deeply reflective volume of poetry, Silent Winds of Aikido.
Thank you!!!


Get full access to Ki to the City at kitothecity.substack.com/subscribe

For those of us who practice Aikido on the regular, we already intimately feel the profound and magical impact it has on everyday life, specifically when it comes to enhancing our ability to harmoniously communicate both verbally and physically with others (occasional social media discourse notwithstanding).
But what happens when you take that intuitive conviction and subject it to the rigorous scrutiny of peer-reviewed academic research?
The result is the groundbreaking work of Dr. Greet Angèle De Baets, a Sensei from Ban Sen Juku Aikido in Belgium, whose doctoral research has provided us with compelling, scientific proof that the principles we exercise on the mat are, indeed, powerful tools for improving real-world communication.
I had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr. De Baets (albeit from about 3,600 miles away) to discuss her fascinating personal journey and the findings of her PhD thesis, Embodied Learning With and From Aikido: A Mixed-Methods Investigation Into Teaching Intercultural Communication Skills for the Workplace.
(The PDF is available for all; just reach out to me and I’ll get you in touch!)
It was an absolute delight to talk with a professor of linguistics whose intellectual curiosity and acumen is matched only by her visceral commitment to embodying the principles of Aikido.
Greet Sensei’s introduction to Aikido, was, like many of ours, through seemingly sheer coincidence. Following a life-changing horseback riding accident, she was left with spinal difficulties and chronic migraines. In her search for relief, she was introduced to Tai Chi by one of her students. That same Tai Chi teacher also taught Aikido…
There’s much more depth to this origin story than I can convey here in this little blurb, so, please, listen to the episode.
A synchronistic start led her to the Ban Sen Juku lineage in Belgium with a local Sensei who happened to be a direct student of Seiji Tomita Sensei.
While his name was new to me, discovered while researching for the interview, the impressive depth and breadth of Tomita Shihan’s background is immediately apparent.
Having trained under Tanaka Bansen Sensei, Tohei Sensei, and Saito Sensei, (and, of course, most importantly, directly with O-Sensei himself) Tomita Shihan’s approach is marked by a clear focus on the “one line” and a sincere adherence to ki musubi—connection and unification with your partner.
Dr. De Baets speaks with glowing reverence for individual instruction she’s received from Tomita Sensei, and it’s clear how his teachings form a foundational stone for her communication work.
At the heart of her methodology is the belief that communication is not purely cognitive.
Professional communication training is predominantly passive: slide-based, power-point presentations, focused solely on intellectual understanding.
Dr. De Baets challenges this head-on. She literally removes the chairs and tables from the room, using simple, “white belt” level tai sabaki as the theory itself—a powerful somatic metaphor—to teach interaction.
She emphasizes that communication “lives in breathing, voice, attitude, timing, presence,” and you cannot learn that by sitting down. What you are learning must be embodied.
Dr. De Baets’ research provides compelling, quantitative (we already have plenty of the qualitative) proof that the “Aikido Interaction Model” and the embodied learning experience have a powerfully positive effect on interpersonal (and beyond) interactions.
Her findings demonstrate that incorporating Aikido activities into communication training significantly supports participant satisfaction, memory retention, and—most importantly for a population riddled with conflict and societal atomization—intercultural competence.
Ultimately, Dr. De Baets’ work offers an elegant and sophisticated answer to a question many of us have sensed instinctively for years: that our practice is more than a martial art.
By aligning her findings with progressive linguistic theories, she reveals another profound conclusion—that Aikido can be understood as a language—a language of social interaction, body movement, sensory experience, and contextual meaning-making.
If you’ve ever needed “evidence-based” validation for your dedication to practice, this is the episode for you.
Tune in to discover how tranquility and anthropocosmic nobility can transform how we interact and influence the world around us.
Here are the relevant links:
Blog
Professional website
Greet Sensei’s local dojo
Main Dojo and lineage
Once again, please reach out to me (or Dr. De Baets) directly for a PDF of her thesis.
Also, (Until/unless I can find some sponsors ;) Ki to the City remains a reader-supported publication. If you have benefited from this project, please consider signing up to be a paid subscriber to help keep the podcast on “the airwaves.”
If you would prefer to make a one-time contribution, you can email me directly at [email protected].
As a token of my gratitude, and Don Dickie Sensei’s generosity, you will receive a complimentary copy of his deeply reflective volume of poetry, Silent Winds of Aikido.
Thank you!!!


Get full access to Ki to the City at kitothecity.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to Ki to the City at kitothecity.substack.com/subscribe

I haven’t done one of these “solo episodes” in a while.
I know I promised I wouldn’t anymore because I felt like I was making it too much about “me,” but a guest rescheduled at the last minute and I don’t want to break the momentum of putting out at least one episode a week.
I’m superstitious like that.
So, here’s a short story I’m working on for one of the many books I’ll probably never publish.
It’s a ‘ruff’ draft.
I’m not gonna lie, sometimes I get pretty down on myself…
Wow! I just got hit with some acute ‘deja vu.’
It probably never really actually happened, but I just got struck with this vivid memory of being told sternly that I should never start off a sentence (in writing) with, “I’m not gonna lie.”
For the record, it’s part of my everyday lingo, and I want to stay true to my vernacular.
Now, I just got hit with another major ‘deja vu’ memory of being told that I should never write about ‘deja vu.’
Anyway… sometimes I get pretty down on myself.
I know I’m not alone in this.
Anyone with a modicum of humility understands what we’re all up against: how difficult it is to maintain a joyful connection to the universe at all times, not to mention unwavering confidence in all the impractical ideas we have for how to ‘make the world a better place,’ etc…
And sometimes I question my obsessive dedication to practicing aikido, trudging along with my podcast, and whatever other aerial designs I have in my head of pursuing/promoting this art I love as a vocation (of sorts).
But last Wednesday, at least, my trip to the dojo paid some karmic dividends.
Practice itself was fine. That’s not what this story is about. I was leading the class; we had a visitor from Japan, so I made sure my etiquette was on point.
It was while walking to the train station after class when I felt like, for a brief moment at least, my life had a greater purpose.
When we all left the dojo, I wanted to properly say thank you and goodbye to our Japanese visitor, so I bowed.
As I was mid-bow, two rambunctious young men swaggered brusquely past with some extra attitude. One of them bumped into me. His reaction indicated placing blame on me for the bump. The other one remarked that I looked like I was trying to kiss somebody or something.
I just laughed and said, “Oh sorry… sorry… my fault.”
As I walked to the train, my inner monologue was peppered with praise about how proud I was of myself for not overreacting to the minor pedestrian slight.
This lulled me into a daydream (even though it wasn’t day) of previous instances where I had to temper my temper when bumped into or otherwise inconvenienced by my fellow serfs in the city who didn’t bother to apologize.
I was snapped out of this reverie when I heard a little dog’s sharp yelp.
Ahead of me, navigating the icy, garbage-laden terrain, were two young women walking a dirty white toy poodle.
I feel bad calling the poodle dirty, but it was. All white with muddy paws and those black tear stains that some dogs get.
It cried out because one of the girls stepped on it.
She blamed him (or her, I didn’t check) because it kept “walking between” her feet.
The leash they had wasn’t a choke chain; it was one of those retractable leashes, but they had it let out all the way, at full length.
I was walking about 10 paces behind, and I offered a barely audible “aww, are you okay?”
No one probably heard me but myself.
As we kept walking, me now shaken fully out of my reverie of past potential scuffles, reflecting on how Aikido really maybe has made me a better person, I started thinking like, “Yeah, but what am I actually doing with my life? You know?”
The euphoria of teaching a well-received class was already starting to dissolve, and I started musing about ‘my troubles’.
As I approached the crosswalk; my attention shifted back to the young women with the poor, unkempt little poodle.
The light was about to turn red, and one of the young women (I’ll call her “girl-number-one”) decided to run across the street to catch up to somebody.
She yelled out a name. “Maya.”
At first, I thought that was the dog’s name, but she was yelling it out up ahead while she ran, and it wouldn’t have made sense to yell out the dog’s name like that.
Meanwhile, girl-number-two, the one holding the dog (not named Maya) on the unretracted leash, decided not to cross the street.
She stopped short as the light flashed red.
The poodle, however, wanted to follow girl-number-one, so he (or she) darted up ahead after her. And, because the leash was at full length, the little muddy-pawed dog was able to scamper across the street without any hindrance to its mobility.
I saw this scene unfurl in slow motion, without all the verbiage.
A voice in my head said, “Oh S**t! That dog’s about to get hit.”
And sure enough, I saw a car, trying to make the light, speed through the intersection.
Now, I don’t know if my voice can actually arrest canine movement through sound waves, but in that moment, I tried it anyway. I yelled out, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!”
In essence, I barked.
The little dog stopped (not, thank God) dead in its tracks. A split second before it would’ve been crushed beneath the left front tire, it jumped back, turned around, looked at me like I said something it understood, and ran towards me.
I paid no attention to girl-number-two. Girl-number-one was long gone.
I’m too self-conscious about sounding like a fussy, old, concerned citizen to have offered any admonishment. Instead, I talked to the dog directly. I said, “You need to be careful when you cross the street; you’re going to get hit by a car. It’s very dangerous.”
The dog looked up at me like it got my point. I know it probably didn’t, but it looked at me like it did and sat at my feet.
Girl-number-two said “thank you” kind of nonchalantly. Like I said, I don’t want to get into it with people. I don’t want to judge them for their attitudes or their ability to take responsibility. I don’t want to come across like an old man who tells people what to do.
Not for nothing, but this is the third dog-life I’ve saved.
The previous two were little dogs that were about to get killed by big dogs. In both scenarios, the big dog had the little dog in its mouth, and I ran over and picked the big dog up by the collar and just yelled loudly in its face, “No!” The big dog dropped the little dog and then kind of apologized to me.
I know it sounds a little bit far-fetched (get it?), but it really happened. Twice.
Anyway, as far as last Wednesday night goes, I’m not saying that I’ve gained any special powers through my obsessive Aikido practice enabling me to stop potentially destructive actions through sound waves.
My point is: if I didn’t go to class, I wouldn’t have been in the position to save that dog’s life.
So at least for a fleeting moment, I felt like I was on the right track.
Maybe that little dirty poodle’s destiny is to do something great.


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