DIRK KROPPAikidoüben

Aikido üben Dirk Kropp Silcherstraße 12 D-50827 Cologne Tel. +49 221 5879191

www.aikido-ueben.de

PETRA REUFFURTH

Trainee aikido teacher, 3rd dan

Born in 1971 and initially raised in the Netherlands, I moved with my parents to Cologne in 1980. As a teenager, I discovered my love of climbing and mountaineering and was active in the German Alpine Club for ten years, including a time spent heading the work done with children and young people.

After graduating from high school, I started a degree in special education at the University of Cologne and it was during this time that someone recommended I did aikido with Dirk Kropp. In May 1996, I attended my first aikido lesson and was immediately impressed by the silence during practice. I was particularly attracted by the possibilities of personal development and getting to grips with my own physicality.

After completing my studies, I soon developed, in my professional life, a focus in the therapeutic work I was doing with young children. For many years, I worked in a social paediatric centre in the Bergisches Land region. Giving young children developmental impetuses via the relationship I built up with them and supporting the interaction between parent and child are particular concerns of mine. Various aspects of aikido enrich my work.

Regular aikido practice over many years has also made the Christian faith more accessible to me. Since 2005, I have been going to a monastery for short and long retreats. In my view, the actual way a martial art is practised and its physical, mental and spiritual dimensions complement Christian spirituality very well and I am always discovering aspects that unify the two sides.

At the beginning of 2012, I started working part-time in order to devote myself more to aikido so that I could achieve my long-cherished dream of becoming an aikido teacher. Among other things, I would like to teach aikido to adolescents and adults for educational and therapeutic purposes so that I can offer other people the healing path which aikido can be.