Forged in Adversity: Budo Accelerator’s Summer Leadership Academy

When Mark Tercek and I founded Budo Accelerator in late 2019, we never would have imagined what the world would look like today.

Our vision for Budo Accelerator was to create a nonprofit organization that uses the martial art of Aikido to elevate our youth, strengthen our communities, and forge a new generation of leaders equipped to face the great challenges of our time. We were ready to launch our first programs this Spring at my dojo in Irvine, California.

On Friday, March 13th, I closed Ikazuchi Dojo. Five days later, our county began closing. Soon after, the entire state. Then, and still today, we have no idea when and how we’ll be able to run in-person programs.

Aikido builds adaptive capacity in its practitioners. With the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve been given a challenging opportunity to put that into practice. We decided to launch our first program as a fully online Summer Leadership Academy. We’ll bring together high school students from across the U.S. and use the principles of Aikido to develop leadership capabilities, forge new friendships, and make a real impact by putting students’ new skills into action with a community service project. And to ensure that students of all socio-economic backgrounds can participate together, full scholarships are available.

We will connect students from the Aikido community with teens who have never practiced, or even heard of, Aikido. We know the students from our community will make a positive impact and forge new friendships with their peers from around the globe.

While we won’t be able to engage in connected, physical Aikido practice, we will be able to explore Aikido principles- and put them into action in the real world. This program will teach us a great deal about what can really be done online (I believe it’s more than most people think). We’ll also learn how we can best integrate digital into our programs when physical practice again becomes a reality. And we are committed to learning as much as we can from the students who participate. Their feedback will drive our program designs and likely even our organizational strategy.  Those who participate in this program will make a real impact.

I hope you’ll take a few minutes to learn more about our Budo Accelerator here. We’d love any feedback you may have on our design and approach. So far, applications to the program have been overwhelming in terms of quantity, diversity, and quality.

I wish you the best in these times of adversity and look forward to the time when all of us in the Aikido community can connect again physically.

Josh Gold,

Executive Editor, Aikido Journal

CEO, Budo Accelerator