Now that you have your uniform is also important to learn the proper way to tie your belt.
Putting on your uniform Belt
Entering the Mat
You remember we enter the mat without shoes, right? We also bow down before entering as a sign of respect.
Japanese Pronunciation
Since Aikido is a Japanese Art, it uses a lot of Japanese words.
While training in Aikido does not include mastering the Japanese language, for those of you who are interested, this is a more in-depth guide for the pronunciation and meaning of Japanese words and terms related to our training.
Vowels
Similar to Spanish, Japanese generally has only one sound assigned to each vowel:
- a = “aw” sound as in raw, top, calm.
- i = “ee” as in eel, meal, iguana.
- u = “00” as in moon, tune, flu.
- e = “eh” as in met, well, elevator.
- o = “oh” as in open, tone, loan.
In Japanese, each syllable is pronounced for an equal amount of time. The word hakama is often pronounced in a more English way: “huh-KAW-muh”, but in Japanese would be closer to sounding like “hakka-ma”