Maria Villani, a 4th degree black belt and international traveler, never goes anywhere without her gi tucked in her suitcase. She has joined aikido practices in her native Buenos Aires to Mexico, Europe, and several U.S cities. Aikido is an art that not only makes her happy – “It’s medicine but with no side effects,” she says – but which she also finds fascinating intellectually, physically, emotionally, and philosophically.
Maria, a residential and commercial design consultant, had briefly studied judo as a teenager but didn’t return to the martial arts until she was 46. Never called to “group” athletics, which she found “boring,” she did agree to join a friend in an aikido class. It proved to be the start of a lifelong love affair with the art. “I don’t always follow the rules,” says Maria, a high-energy, independent thinker. “But in aikido I do.” Aikido’s practice and philosophy have helped her in life. Wherever she is in the world, they “carry her through.” Practicing at other dojos under different teachers, especially the masters from Japan, which our Goto Sensei fosters, helps her to continue to polish her skills and overcome the challenges of different body types, level of skills and ways of being. Ever the extrovert, Maria loves practicing with and teaching all people, big and small.
Aikido is “meditation in motion,” she says, acknowledging that she isn’t particularly good at sitting still and meditating on a cushion. But the inner quiet she has developed serves her both on and off the mat. “It has given me a better way to handle crisis and difficult situations,” she says. In life or in class, when a person’s energy comes toward her, she allows that energy to move and then peacefully responds in a non-reactionary way, with full consciousness. “I can give a more qualified response in a positive way,” she adds.
Maria now teaches the new Aikido Foundations course for beginners on Mondays, where teenagers and adults can learn the basic techniques and how to fall and roll safely. Both this class and the regularly scheduled ones with Goto Sensei and other senior teachers also help students build confidence in one’s body and learn what it means to have “presence.” Unlike other martial arts, where you might be using more force, Maria feels aikido is a little easier on the body. And for little ones, who can join the Wednesday children’s class, aikido is just plain fun. Children love to roll and move.
For the future, now that she is skilled in the basic moves, she wants to focus on strategy on the mat and continue to polish her skills under the teachings of Goto Sensei, whom she admires for his mastery of the art, his giving spirit, humility and infinite positivity and patience. She definitely wants to keep having those profound “moments of wow” during practice, when things “click,” proving once again why the aikido mat is her happy place.