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Christian Tissier Shihan, 7th Dan Aikikai and Head of the French Aikido Federation (FFAAA), is a role model for Antonio Quero, the MIT School’s Sensei. The master has practiced with him on several occasions -the last one, for 15 days during this summer- in order to improve his technique and show it to his students.

That is why we do not want to miss the chance to know Tissier a little more in this interview, in which he speaks about Aikido as a discipline, as well as about his personal experience. Therefore we can read, for example, the story of his return to France after having lived for seven years in the Hombu Doju of Tokio, and the narration of one of his biggest achievements: to be the first non-japanese to receive the Shihan title.

Reading his words we can realize that, as we have reviewed on several occasions, this martial art is, above all, a life philosophy: “If there is a difficulty, we shouldn’t try to avoid it, but instead, try to find an appropriate solution by changing angle or posture but not technique”, says the proffesional. He also states: “Wanting to become stronger than everybody else has no meaning. We should just be working on trying to overcome our own apprehensions. This is why the educational system that we put in place during an Aikido class has as an objective to suppress situations of refusal, exclusion, and non-communication. The more we will suppress these fears, the more we will find easy to go towards the others”.