How we treat each other...
Last but not least, our attitude towards other people on the mat is very important. We are all partners, not enemies. We learn by training with others, not against them.
Listen how Julia explains it: I like to help other children. We support each other, because we can learn only by collaborating. There is no competition and that's why Yunus can say: I feel very comfortable in our group.
Without rivalry we train sometimes as uke (the attacker who shall be thrown or fixed with an arm pin), sometimes as nage (the defender - he learns the techniques because uke makes it possible by his attack).
And: All of us are OK,  Marcel says.
Nage is always responsible for his or her partner, especially when throwing, nage must assure that there will be no collision.
Timo: I think everybody is nice - we understand each other well. I'm content with everything.

What we learn is real and serious fighting. But we never forget during training that the other one is our friend or colleague who attacks us without any anger, and you should defend also without anger. Pascal tells us: We don't hurt each other. We explain it sometimes with a joke that we have no "one-way uke", we must be carefully with him because we need him for later!
Lucas concludes: It is not so serious, I mean, we just train, we do not really fight.

As we are learning a japanese martial art, we try to be as polite as japanese. They often bow as a sign of courtesy - and so do we also. We bow when we enter the dojo (training hall) or the tatami (mat), when we start and finish training. It's a kind of saying "hello" and "bye". We bow also when we train with a partner or when the teacher explains something to us - that way we say "please" and "thank you".
We wear clean white aikidogi (aikido training suits) or other clean sports wear. Our finger nails are never long or dirty. Our hands and feet are also always clean.
To keep our feet clean we come into dojo in zori (japanese slippers) and leave them at the edge of the tatami (mat). We enter the mat barefoot.
Before the training we all together lay the mats onto the floor. From time to time we wash the mat. It's a really good feeling to know that we do everything by ourselves.
We try to come to training on time. But sometimes it happens that somebody is late. Then he or she sits down silently on the edge of the mat, meditates a little and waits for a sign of the teacher to start. Then it's time first to warm-up before one can really start doing techniques.
When we're on the mat, we don't leave it until the end of the training. If something happens and one has to leave the mat, the teacher has to be asked about it first.