"Rely on Peace to activate your manifold powers; pacify your environment and create a beautiful world" - Morihei Ueshiba

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AI (pronounced "I") is translated as harmony, KI (pronounced "key") is the life force or spiritual energy, and DO (pronounced "doe") means Path or Way (the same as TAO). Aikido can thus be translated as "the Way of Harmonizing "ki" or the Way of Harmony.

Kootenay Aikido Kenkyukai ( Kootenay Aikido Study Association) is a branch of Aikido KenkyuKai International, which is under the direction of Yoshinobu Takeda Shihan (grand master), 7th dan.

Takeda Sensei's

main dojo is in Yokohama; his senior students have established dojos throughout Australia, as well as in New Zealand, the U.S., Germany, and British Columbia Canada.

Jean-Rene Leduc

Jean-Rene Leduc was born in 1956 in St. Clet, Quebec, the youngest of
four children. After graduating from high school, he spent a year in
Mexico studying Spanish and Italian.

In 1979 he attended the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and in 1980 began his macrobiotic and Japanese cultural studies at the Kushi Institute in Brookline,
Massachusetts. It was there that he met William Gleason sensei and
started to practice Aikido at what is now Shobu Aikido of Boston.
Gleason sensei not only introduced the art of Aikido to Jean-Rene; his
in-depth study of Japanese language and culture inspired his students
with a love for all things Japanese. Gleason sensei is the author of The
Spiritual Foundations of Aikido

.Jean-Rene embarked on Japanese language studies at the Harvard Extension School in 1985, later continuing at the Naganuma and Ichibei schools in Tokyo.

In 1986 Gleason sensei invited Takeda Yoshinobu sensei to Brooklin,
after which Jean-Rene left North America for a five-year stay in Japan.
He underwent intensive training with Takeda sensei, whose dojo is located
on the outskirts of Yokohama. Takeda Shihan holds the rank of seventh
dan and has raised many high-ranking students who have established their
own dojos, in Japan and elsewhere. Jean-Rene had the privilege of
practicing with those senior students, and also the remarkable
opportunity of training under Yamaguchi Seigo Shihan. Yamaguchi Shihan
was a direct student of the Founder of Aikido, Ueshiba Morihei O Sensei.
He held the rank of ninth dan and instructed at Tokyo Hombu Dojo for many
years as well as at his private dojo and at Meiji University. Yamaguchi
Shihan died in 1996.

In 1992 Jean-Rene relocated to the Kootenays of British Columbia, and
opened several dojos. The main dojo is in Nelson. Dojos operate under
the auspices of Takeda Shihan and Aikido Kenkyukai International. At the
beginning of 2003, Kootenay Aikido Kenkyukai's membership comprised 25
adults and an equal number of children. Jean-Rene holds the rank of
fifth dan from Tokyo Hombu Dojo.

In the spring of 2002 Roland Werner, who has been training for 10 years
under Jean-Rene sensei, began the construction of a large,
traditional-style dojo near the town of Winlaw in the magnificent Slocan
Valley, for the use of local practitioners as well as international
visitors. Roland and his wife, Marcia, also an Aikido student, are
wholly committed to the Art of Peace.