When I started university in 1986 I saw an advert for Ki-Aikido at Meadowbank Sports Centre and decided to give it a go.
The club was run by a Sensei Peaston who was a wiry, elderly Scotsman who had started in the Aikikai but moved to Ki-Aikido after coming across Koichi Toehi. His practice covered ki and self-defence against all the attacks we know as 1 to 16 as well as weapon work. There was no set syllabus or gradings.
After a few years of practice he started to have health issues and at the end of one class he presented the two of us who had been there the longest with hakama in the hope we we would take on the running of the club. I had started work as well as getting married and no longer had time to practice so the hakama went into the attic unopened.
Fast forward 20+ years and the kids were leaving school so I had a look around and there was a Ki-Aikido at Meadowbank Sports Centre.
Sensei Docherty had moved from East Kilbride to Edinburgh for work and started his club – he definitely wasn’t elderly but was Scottish. While the core principles and exercises were the same the practice was very different – there was a syllabus and gradings.
There were also strong links with clubs in the West of Scotland and I did my yellow belt through there – where it turned out Sensei O’Connell had know my original sensei; ‘He was some boy, drove a red MG sports car’. I gradually worked through the grades until Sensei Docherty decided I was ready to go for my Dan grading at Headquarters in August 2026. Fortunately I passed and so was able to take the hakama down from the attic and unfold it after 30+ year wait.
Drew Holmes
Edinburgh Ki Aikido Club