6th dan Aikikai Sensei Ivan Novikov is a President of an oldest in Russia aikido-club Lenkai, a Head Coach of the National Council of Aikido in Russia, a Father of FIVE children and a great person to be with.
He started learning aikido under Sergey Kiselev in 1990. Attended a lot of Naomi Namura classes for years. Learned a lot from Nobuyoshi Tamura from which he got his 1-4 Dans and currently is an official Yoshimitsu Yamadas disciple. He began to collect his teaching experiece back in 1993, made a lot of progress and much more to come.
When you join Ivans class for the first time you are already late! It’s very much intense right from the start and this would be a beginning of your new skill called “to catch up”. Isn’t it great to realize that you already have something to be learned even before things start burning? Be sure they will!
Sensei gives a lot of kokyu-related, spinning and complicated techniques. It’s not for you, he’s the one who loves them. For you it’s the only possible way to learn or polish them and if you were looking for a chance to act – you’re in a right place. Novikovs moves are sharp and fast. His center is right where it should be no matter how complex is his idea. Add a solid confidence, conditioned body and you get a deep feeling that things are going to move his way and another good feeling about the Martial Arts, not a dance.
I would clearly call him an open-minded person. He gives it to you right in the face without thinking too much and you get the reason. This makes a learning process easy to understand, making you ready for the next events without overthinking. He is not hiding any technical or psychological secrets, his bigest secret is a hard work on a long distance of time. It’s up to you on how much you can take.
You can be sure that you will get his attention no matter how big group of people is. Well organized mind will help you see things you didn’t before, will find a missing part in a puzzle you may be trying to solve for a long time.
Being here and there and everywhere is his way, not only on tatami. Besides activity in Saint-Petersburg and Moscow he’s a Technical Director of the Aikido Federations in Lithuania, Volgograd, Penza and Khanty-Mansiysk. He’s attending international and running own seminars inside and outside Russia regularly as well as the aikido camps. His long-distance Aikido-training journeys rolled him to France, Spain, Bulgaria, Japan, USA, Australia, Poland and others.
Ivan loves what he does, especially Aikido. If you are looking for an aikido teacher or ever have a chance to join his classes, seminars, training camps or to “touch” his Aikido at least for a second – grab it without thinking, it will be a great part in your aikido way.