Thank you to everyone from Masa Kokoro and Calgary Aikikai for all of their support and encouragement.

Thank you to Ben-sensei for his instruction, guidance, and encouragement right from the start of my Aikido training; to Eric-sempai, Norm-sensei, Eric Josue and the instructors from Calgary Aikikai for their guidance and efforts along the way (especially as testing drew near); to the senior students of both dojos for their guidance and assistance in correcting and refining my techniques. Thank you to me cohorts for their hard work and help provided with each-other’s training; and thank you to the kohai I trained with as your questions and willingness to train has helped me further my understanding of the techniques as much as the guidance from our sempais and senseis as you have encouraged self reflection upon my training, helping to illuminate areas of improvement or when clarification of a technique was required. Thank you to you all, I look forward to the continued training with, and learning from, that will occur in the days to come.

A special thank you to the testing committee for their time and feed back, helping me understand and learn from my weaknesses; your comments and guidance are invaluable.