My Walk on the Aikido Path: A Healing Journey of Self Discovery

Rachel is 55 years old, born and raised in Brooklyn New York to Jewish parents who were left-wing activists. Her mother remarried when I was six. She has an older sister and a younger brother. She has an undergraduate degree from Hunter College, an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University, and a Master’s degree in clinical psychology from Saint Michael’s College.

She is currently a psychotherapist in private practice full time. As a young adult, she had a severe mental breakdown and struggled with mental illness. Her book details the traumatic background that drove this deterioration. She lived with my father for a long period of convalescence. Eventually, she moved to Burlington, Vermont, with my partner. Today she lives in South Burlington, Vermont.

She found Aikido, a non-violent martial art, at the age of 32, while I was still living with my father. Aikido saved her and turned my life around, and this journey of recovery is the subject of her memoir, “My Walk on the Aikido Path: A Healing Journey of Self Discovery". She got her black belt (shodan) in 2011 and is currently training for her second-degree black belt, (Nidan.)

The important things in her life are her partner, her aikido practice, her psychotherapy practice, and my extended family, with whom she is very close.

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