Berkeley

COMMENTARY: Aikido is More than Martial Arts: It’s Community

For the last six years, I’ve practiced Aikido at a Berkeley dojo called the Aiki Arts Center—previously named Aikido Shusekai. Aikido is a Japanese martial art focused on responding calmly to attack without hurting the attacker or yourself. Instead of using force, you blend with the attack to redirect it. The name roughly translates to “The Art of Peace.”

Published

3 years ago

April 19, 2023

Oakland Post

Azzia Walker Sensei, with student Zoe Jung. Aiki Arts Center web site photo.

Post News Group Intern

For the last six years, I’ve practiced Aikido at a Berkeley dojo called the Aiki Arts Center—previously named Aikido Shusekai.

Aikido is a Japanese martial art focused on responding calmly to attack without hurting the attacker or yourself. Instead of using force, you blend with the attack to redirect it. The name roughly translates to “The Art of Peace.”

When I first started practicing Aikido at the age of 10, I loved it for its physicality. The throws and rolls, kicks and punches—it was an outlet for my brimming energy.

Aikido is also spiritual. There’s a sense that we’re all working together toward something we don’t really know or understand. We trust each other; if we didn’t, the physicality would corrupt.

This same physicality makes the practice hard. I have recurring feelings of malaise and dread regarding Aikido. Every committed practice I’ve had has eventually run into this reluctance: swimming, horseback riding, internships.

What keeps me going to the dojo is the community.

The dojo’s senior instructor is Nick Walker Sensei, an autistic trans woman and professor of psychology at California Institute of Integral Studies. I started practicing there shortly after receiving my own autism diagnosis at age 9.

I am autistic, queer, trans, and so is the dojo. I feel safe there, and I love the practice, and so I stay. I train every Sunday.

Here’s how it goes.

The dojo is located in the dark red Sawtooth Building, so named because of its jagged, angular roof. After parking, I go inside at half past noon, passing a sign propped up by the door that reads “Aikido in Studio 12! Beginners Welcome!”

Studio 12 is a beautiful space: two large skylights and sunlit rafters draped with acrobatics swings.

The far wall, called the Shomen, holds a Shinto shrine. We bow to it when we enter or leave the room or step onto or off the mats. It’s a traditional dojo furnishing.

If we’re late, other students have already put out the mats, and the floor becomes a sea of blue. If not, I step to the doorway, bow, and join them.

Once the mats are laid out, we stream away to get dressed. Those of us who are nonbinary get to choose which changing room to use, and I like the women’s room. It’s in the back, a cozy curtained-off storage room with rugs, mirrors, and a stack of chairs along one wall.

There’s usually some sort of conversation in the changing room. When I shaved my head a few weeks ago, Azzia Walker Sensei and I joked that people wouldn’t be able to tell us apart. She taught the Youth Program when it was still running. Now, I’m the only one left.

Changing is the step between Aikido and the outside world. I take off my street clothes and put on the uniform: long white pants, white jacket over a tank top, tied closed with a belt. It’s comfortable for stretching, rolling and falling.

I take my water bottle and step back through the curtain. In floods the sun.

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UC Berkeley Named Top Public University in the U.S. and No. 7 in the World by ‘U.S. News’

Berkeley has been consistently awarded the distinction of the U.S.’s top public university since the Best Global Universities list was first published in 2014. “A strong position in the Best Global Universities rankings recognizes a school’s profound commitment to world-class research and cross-border academic excellence,” said LaMont Jones, managing editor for education at U.S. News.

Published

1 week ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Photo by Keegan Houser/UC Berkeley.

The 2026 Best Global Universities rankings evaluated 2,250 research institutions from more than 100 countries

By Lila Thulin

U.S. News & World Report has ranked UC Berkeley No. 7 in its 2026 list of the best global universities, which assesses more than 2,250 research institutions worldwide.

Berkeley also claimed the honor of top public university in the U.S.

Released on Monday, the list evaluates universities from more than 100 countries on 13 metrics such as global and research reputation (as reported by academics and peers) and number of highly cited scholarly papers.

Berkeley has been consistently awarded the distinction of the U.S.’s top public university since the Best Global Universities list was first published in 2014.

“A strong position in the Best Global Universities rankings recognizes a school’s profound commitment to world-class research and cross-border academic excellence,” said LaMont Jones, managing editor for education at U.S. News.

The rankings also assess a university’s strength in various subject areas; these assessments are separate from U.S. News’ 2026 Best Graduate Programs rankings released in April.

This year, Berkeley was named in the top three nationally in seven subject areas – environment/ecology, ecology, water resources, physics, computer science, chemistry, and engineering – and in the top five for a total of 17 subjects. Subject rankings are based heavily on scholarly publications and citations as well as reputation.

In September, U.S. News also released its 2026 Best Colleges list, in which Berkeley was also named the No. 1 public institution among American universities.

That honor joins other accolades judging campus to be the best public university in the country, such as those from Forbes, The Wall Street Journal and Times Higher Education.

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Arts and Culture

Farwest Region Deltas Celebrate Centennial With “September Breakfast” Honoring Vivian Osborne Marsh

The region was established in 1925 under the leadership of Vivian Osborne Marsh, who became its first Regional Director. Marsh was a pioneering scholar and civic leader, earning recognition as the first Black woman to receive both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in anthropology from UC Berkeley.

Published

10 months ago

September 14, 2025

Oakland Post

Farwest Regional Director, Kimberly Usher, Mayor Barbara Lee, US Representative Lateefah Simon, and Farwest Regional Representative, Radiya Ajibade. Photo courtesy of Farwest Regional Photographer Vicki P. Love.

By Antoinette Porter

Hundreds of members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and their guests gathered at the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union at the University of California, Berkeley, to mark the 100th anniversary of the sorority’s Farwest Region.

Marsh went on to serve as Delta Sigma Theta’s 7th National President, where she launched the sorority’s National Library Project to expand access to books in underserved Black communities in the South. During her presidency, the organization also became a prominent voice in the civil rights movement, lobbying Congress to pass anti-lynching legislation.

Bak in the Bay Area, Marsh devoted her career to advancing educational opportunities, mentoring young people, and strengthening community life. That commitment continues to shape the region, which supports initiatives in education, social justice, and economic development. Current projects include raising scholarship funds for students at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, voter education campaigns, and health and wellness programs.

A century after its founding, the Farwest Region of Delta Sigma Theta remains active across California and other western states, carrying forward Marsh’s vision of service and advocacy.

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Arts and Culture

Cal Performances Presents Angélique Kidjo & Yo-Yo Ma in Sarabande Africaine at UC Berkeley Greek Theatre on Aug. 30

On Saturday, Aug. 30, the pair will debut the Bay Area premiere of Sarabande Africaine, joined by pianist Thierry Vaton, percussionist David Donatien, and special guest Sinkane. The program illuminates centuries of musical interplay between African traditions and Western classical forms, using the Baroque sarabande dance, and its African ancestor, the Congolese spirit dance Zarabanda, as a gateway to exploring the deep, interconnected roots of global music.

Published

10 months ago

August 25, 2025

Oakland Post

Angelique Kidjo and Yo-Yo Ma. Wikimedia photos.

By Carla Thomas

On Labor Day weekend two of the world’s most celebrated musicians and cultural ambassadors, Grammy Award–winning vocalist Angélique Kidjo and legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma join forces for an evening of music, history, and cultural dialogue at UC Berkeley’s historic Hearst Greek Theatre.

Both Kidjo and Ma have built careers not only as great performers but as passionate advocates for cultural understanding. Sarabande Africaine is as much a conversation about shared heritage as it is a musical performance, blending genres, geographies, and histories.

“Every day there are moments when all of us can feel we are on the inside of something and also when we feel we are on the outside of something,” said Yo-Yo Ma. “To be able to understand both at the same time and oscillate between the two gives us a larger perspective on the world.”

“If your mind is open, and there is no fear, it’s easier to listen, and to question yourself,” said Kidjo.

The upcoming performance is presented within Cal Performances’ Illuminations: “Exile & Sanctuary” series for the 2025–26 season. The production explores exile as more than just physical displacement, but a disruption in identity and belonging, while sanctuary represents both refuge and the creative space where new connections and communities can take shape.

Cal Performances’ Illuminations bridges performances with UC Berkeley’s academic research, pairing the arts with conversations about urgent global issues.

Kidjo’s continued partnership with Cal Performances includes her 2021–22 artist-in-residence, premiering her music-theater work Yemandja, set in 19th-century West Africa during the transatlantic slave trade.

She also participated in the Bias in Our Algorithms and Society panel alongside campus leaders like Jennifer Chayes, and joined the Black Studies Collaboratory for a dialogue on music, diaspora, and the world.

She has since returned to Berkeley for multiple performances, most recently in 2024 at Zellerbach Hall.

Yo-Yo Ma’s history with Cal Performances spans decades, beginning in 1997. One notable project includes the 2018 performance of Bach’s complete cello suites at the Greek Theatre, a testament to his devotion to creating “transformative concert experiences in iconic spaces.”

For tickets and more information, visit calperformances.org.