Patricia Hendricks

Patricia Hendricks is a 7th dan aikido teacher. Founder of Aikido of San Leandro www.aikido-sanleandro.com She is also the head of division one (the Iwama division) of the California Aikido Association ai-ki-do.org and is the first "menkyo kaiden" in Saito-shihan's system of aiki-ken and aiki-jo.^[1]

Her study of aikido began in 1974 through Mary Heiny with Stanley Pranin and later with William Witt and Bruce Klickstein. She studied in Iwama extensively with the late Morihiro Saito Shihan. In 1976 she moved to Iwama, Japan, to study with Saito Sensei Shihan. For the next 28 years, she returned to Japan over 25 times of which 6 years were as uchi-deshi.

She started studying Aikido in June 1974 while a student at Monterey Peninsula College in Monterey, California. She had been interested in studying a martial art and found a course in Aikido being offered that semester. The instructor was Mary Heiny who was a Sandan at that time and had recently returned from studying in Japan. It was during that semester of study that she heard about Stan Pranin who was teaching Aikido to a small group of students in his garage in Monterey. She studied with Stan Pranin until 1976 when they both moved to Oakland to study first with Bruce Klickstein and then with Bill Witt Sensei. Later that same year she moved to Iwama, Japan, where she became uchideshi and a student of Saito Sensei. She returned to Oakland in 1979 and continued studying with Bruce Klickstein Sensei. Over the next 28 years she returned regularly to Iwama for brief and long term periods of study with Saito Sensei. During this time she also earned her degree in Oriental Languages (with emphasis in Japanese) from U.C. Berkeley. In 1984 she founded the Aikido of San Leandro dojo. In 1988 she embarked on a 6 month European tour, combining travel and teaching, before once again returning to Iwama for study as a long-term uchi-deshi.

As a 7th dan, she is one of the highest ranked Caucasian women in the world. She is the only woman in the Aikido world who leads an Aikido organization, and the only woman to be authorized by Saito Shihan to conduct weapons testing, as well as the first woman and foreigner to receive certification test for weapons (aiki-ken and aiki-jo). She was also almost certainly the first Caucasian women to take ukemi for a shihan at the all japan aikido demonstration, whereas Bernice Tom Sensei was the first woman to do so.^[2] At various times she traveled with Saito Shihan as his uke.^[1]

In many of Saito Shihan's books and other publications, she is one of the Aikidokas demonstrating techniques or taking ukemi.^[1]

She is one of the pioneering Aikidokas for women in the western world.^[3]

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