Bokken on a Plane

A random and pointless aikido story for the day...

So my parents near Baltimore, and it just so happens that my Sensei will be teaching a seminar in Baltimore the same weekend as my dad's birthday.  I decided to fly down to participate in both.

While I've attended a few seminars at other dojos, I've never flown to one before, and so for the first time, I had to ask the question: can I take my bokken as a carry-on, or would I have to check it (which I loathe doing, especially when I'm only going away for a weekend)?  I surveyed the opinions of my coworkers, who weren't sure one way or the other, and texted one of my friends with a black belt (he'd never tried one way or the other).

I was checking my airlines guidelines when I discovered that the TSA has a "Can I bring it?" tool on their website, and it even recognized the word "bokken".  Answer: no.  Pretty much all martial arts weapons are apparently no-go for carry on baggage, but they are allowed as checked baggage.

I was just ridiculously amused that the TSA has an app for that, and that it recognized what a bokken was.

And so concludes the pointless aikido story of the day.

Intro

My dad pointed out to me that I really ought to start writing about aikido now, when I'm still fairly new at the whole gig.

I started in May of 2013, so I'm a little more than a year and a half in, now.  I just passed my fourth kyu test at the beginning of November, but honestly, I still feel like a no-kyu pretty much all of the time.

I study at Shobu Aikido of Boston, and my sensei is William Gleason Shihan.  This is my blog about aikido.