Ferocious & Female

BigRock Aikikai is dedicated to supporting females in Aikido. We want to celebrate the achievements of girls in our dojo and support them on their path to becoming great leaders in our Aikido community. This is why BigRock Aikikai has started Ferocious & Female, an initiative focused on empowering girls and women in Aikido. Our dojo wants to recognize these amazing females, because all genders are equal, and considering so many girls to this day are constrained by unfair judgements and stereotypes, we want to bring as much attention to this as possible. The initiative is here to help as many girls as we can on our society’s path to equality, aiming to showcase strong female leaders and role models as an inspiration to all girls in our Aikido community.

Ferocious and Female has a local focus, Canadian focus, and international focus, each spotlighting a ferocious female. Our current local focus showcases nine year old Peyton Sotto, one of BigRock Aikikai’s blue belt students who demonstrates kindness, focus, patience, and fierce determination in everything she does, which was why she was awarded our first ever Ferocious and Female certificate. Our Canadian focus brought light to Yumi Nakamura Sensei, the most senior female Aikidoka in the Canadian Aikido Federation at 7th Dan. Lastly, our international focus will be spotlighting Jamie Zimron Sensei, a 6th Dan black belt with a strong passion to help as many people as she can through her extraordinary lectures and training programs. 

There are many other Ferocious and Female elements we are preparing to implement in our dojo, including a T-Shirt, crest, sticker, and overnight camp! BigRock Aikikai is very excited to kickstart this initiative and showcase awe-inspiring females. We want more female black belts, more women running their own dojos, and more girls aspiring to be leaders in the Aikido community!

'True victory does not come from defeating an enemy, true victory comes from giving love and changing an enemy's heart,' -Morihei Ueshiba