 Hello everyone, this is Rokas or also Rokas, so to begin with I'm sorry that it's been a while since I uploaded a video on this channel, my instructor since Epatricacity came to Lithuania, then I went to visit my brother in UK, there's a lot of other stuff going on. I was teaching a lecture to a couple hundred kids in a school about violence in school because it's a very harsh subject in Lithuania and my country. I was getting a stress relief seminar, the whole dojo is obviously moving ahead, so there was a lot of stuff and even though I wanted to there was barely any time to make a video, but finally I have some time and this time what I wanted to talk to you about is a bit more personal. I made a few videos on the line of this topic but never really finished it. There's one called How Batman Changed My Life, it's an animation about which shares a bit of my story. There's a few how to open the dojo videos but never really fully shared my story and oftentimes in the YouTube comments I get the comments. So what style do you practice or you know how did you start like you know where did you start etc etc and I decided I'm gonna just make this video so that whenever somebody asks a question I could just you know show this video to look at. So without any further ado I'll simply share my story of Aikido. I was born in Inshule, so Aikido Shulei, Shulei is the name of the city, so I was born in Shulei the city where I run my dojo right now, but I grew up in another city called Paneveshi, it's a small, it's a fairly small city compared to other big countries, but it's the fifth biggest city in Lithuania, but at that time after the post in the post-Soviet time after the Soviet Union collapsed there was a lot of crime back there. The city was even called Little Chicago by some because back then Chicago was also known as a big crime city. So crime was very common there and since I was not in the thug in the thug life, since I was not in any gang and I was pretty much the opposite, I was as being a hip hopper. The gangs would hunt us down and had me and my friends down and then try to kick our ass or rob us etc etc so I would have to face physical conflict on a very regular basis, it was very common to get attacked. So I feel that already inspired me to to start a look into how to protect others. Obviously I had to protect myself but but I was able to protect myself pretty much always but my friends would still get into a lot of trouble. So I decided to ask myself, okay so how can I protect my friends? Like how can I seeing all that seeing all those all that suffering and all that pain I decided to ask myself, okay so how how do I how can I make a difference? How can I do something about this? What can I do about this? So I started studying psychology and self-development and meditation quite early, like very early actually. I became already interested in when I was maybe 10 years old and slowly obviously developed and I became interested in Eastern culture, martial arts, samurai but I never really practiced something on an official level until when I just turned 14 a friend of mine said that he's going back to Aikido after a short break. He said do you want to go? And I didn't know back then what Aikido is but he told me a bit and this and that and I said yeah sure let's let's try. And pretty much after the first class I felt like that's it. You know that's that's something that I'm looking for it. It's it's a tool that could help me develop the qualities that I need. And only later when I was practicing I discovered that the philosophy of Aikido which I really fell in love with early on. I really enjoyed what Osensei was saying and it really clicked to me you know what he was talking a lot about fulfilling your purpose about protecting others having the protective spirit about transforming conflict and it was exactly what I was looking for. So I really I really became passionate about Aikido and although I was still going to school quite soon enough school became a secondary thing and Aikido became a primary thing. So I spent a lot of time in the dojo I would train day I would go there to train extra I would and I even got a got into a fairly high position in my dojo with my instructor since the town all the all the senior young people would leave to study. So there was it was it was one of those dojos which is which which suffers from not having a black belt because you know everybody leaves before they get their black belt so I got a high position so I started helping out my instructor with kids classes sometimes they could taught adults although I was still very young so I got some practice in teaching which is great and in the beginning we had a great contact with the teacher and that was very inspired by what he is an example but as years passed our perspective started to collapse collide I was very much enthusiastic about what Osensei was saying and he was more enthusiastic about the martial arts aspect he was more actually interested in jujutsu than Aikido karate as well so he made some karate training methods into Aikido training so I started to and I started to realize that what I feel like it always when what he feels like it always is not necessarily the same thing there were other things too but long story but anyway so after about three years of constant practice I started to what else is possible and back then I was still going to school and school was about to school was coming to an end and I had to make a decision what am I gonna do after after school and so I realized that I don't want to study in Lithuania especially back then it was pretty much it was unofficially mandatory to study if you don't study you're a loser means something is wrong with you I was fairly smart I was a loser so I had that pressure of people telling me that I need to study my parents friends grandparents etc so the pressure was very strong nobody asked me if I want to study everybody asked me what you want to study I had a lot of conflicts I was choosing between a lot of different things what I could do but none of them I felt passionate about and so I made this pilgrimage from from from some of from a certain point to a famous place in Lithuania next to Shulei called the Hill of Crosses this was a 50 kilometer walk and it was from 6 in the morning to 10 in the evening pretty much without any breaks so I as I was walking I was asked okay so what will I do after I finish high school and suddenly dawned on me that you know I was asking myself the one question as I mentioned you I was not asking myself if I want to study I asked myself what I want to study but when I asked myself if I want to study I realized no simply no that's that's not my path that's not why I'm here and then I asked myself okay so what do I want to do and it's very quickly realized I want to be an instructor I thought about that already before I really enjoyed teaching and I had some experience in teaching and I realized that I want to devote my my life to it but but obviously when everybody was asking me what I am I gonna study I just lost that that notion and eventually when I came back to me that's it so I decided I want to go to Japan because you know Japan is the origin of origin of Aikido but when I started looking at Uchidashi programs in Japan they would need they normally needed recommendations and I had no contact with those instructors who could recommend me and we were belonging to a different organization and then eventually I found that there's no traditional program in Switzerland led by St. St. Patrick Cassidy and I wrote in a long big email asking a lot of different questions and he wrote back just come you know so I was back then I was still 18 when I reached out to him you know I had been traveling a bit I spoke English already but but still my experience was really really small and yeah so I had to I had to make that I had to make that leap of faith and tell my parents I'm not gonna study I'm gonna go become an Uchidashi and I'm gonna become an instructor so it was hard for them to digest that obviously they were fat they thought I'm making a big mistake but after two years of convincing I convinced them so eventually were convinced to let me try and fail so I would see it by myself that was the deal so yeah they let me out to become an Uchidashi so after I finished high school summer passed and then I turned 19 and I went to Switzerland to become Uchidashi I spent three months there for that moment it felt a lot and so many things changed in school I was quite depressed I felt bad and there was a lot of negative feelings towards school towards my country towards a lot of things and I felt lost and confused and when I became a Uchidashi everything just cleared away since Patrick Cassidy showed me a different type of I was really able to solve all of my all of my hesitations all my doubts and to really commit to that that obviously it was a long and difficult process by itself but eventually after a few months I came back to Lithuania for a small heart surgery another story but but that time back there I knew that I will come back there to become an iconostritor so there's a lot more that I could tell and will tell but I don't want to push too much information into you in one go just a short notice I did promise a couple of people ready to put it out and video about proper Ukemi in terms of Ukemi as receiving being a good Uke to partner so I will do that probably I'll do it after this video I'll do that one and then I will continue this story further if you have any questions please don't ask in the comments I always read them I always go through them I don't always have the chance to answer but but I'm there I'm present if you have any requests on a topic I mean of two I also want to remind you that the Uchidashi program has been started and anyone can come to our dojo we have full living capabilities just come and I'm going to teach a seminar in Germany in November in Bavaria within with other free instructors if you want to join that let me know in the comments and I'll give some more information oh no this was focus and it was great to hang out with you and I'll see you in another video