The Birth of One Dojo:
A Center for Mindfulness Training
Abel Villacorta Sensei
Founder & Executive Director of One Dojo
Head Instructor of Boulder Ki Aikido
Finding Inspiration in Every Turn
One Dojo was started in 2018 with the vision of bringing people together to develop inner calmness, enhance fitness, and gain practical, everyday life benefits from training deeply in traditional eastern mind-body disciplines.
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Abel Villacorta Sensei's devotion to the relational, life-enriching Japanese martial art of Mind-Body-Unified Aikido—imbued with Asian syncretic concepts from Zen Buddhism, Taoism, & Confucianism—as well as strong influences from his yoga practice, inspired him to conjure up One Dojo in the early 2000’s.
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He envisioned a community training space where the core disciplines taught would lead students toward realizing oneness, to help practitioners realize our Universal Mind, to perceive that we are all One. He visualized a home where various Eastern traditions could gather under one roof to practice meditation, movement, and martial arts of self defense. Hence the name One Dojo was born.​
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Today, One Dojo allows a broad group of people, who seek the refinement of the human spirit through mindful, somatic practices to come together, train, and hold the torch brightly for others to follow.
One Dojo Logo: Mindfulness Training Encapsulated
The name One Dojo bears a deep meaning. It centers on the concept that everything we offer will seek to create oneness—to realize we are all one. It also aims to be one home where many modalities can gather around one concept, rather than having separate places to practice meditation, mindfulness training, movement arts, and martial arts of self defense.
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The One Dojo logo is comprised of an enso circle and a single vertical stroke. Adapted from Zen Buddhism, a philosophy which imbues Mind Body Aikido with its core principles, the enso expresses a moment when mind and body are one and free to create. It serves to represent “the circle of life and the connectedness of existence” and holds the space for Self-expression—the single vertical stroke.
Additionally, the O also has a western meaning—it is the first letter of the word ONE. The celestial blue color was chosen for its relation to spiritual aspirations and the pursuit of inner peace. Thus, the totality of the logo represents a community space where practitioners can feel safe to nurture their universal spirit.