5th Degree Black Belt
Alice MacAllister, JD, CMT, Dipl ABT (NCCAOM), began her training in 1981 under Frank Doran Shihan at Aikido West in Redwood City, California, and at Stanford University. In 1998 MacAllister Sensei co-founded Aikido Silicon Valley with O'Quin Sensei. She and O'Quin Sensei desired to bring the "Iwama" teaching style of Morihiro Saito Sensei to the South San Francisco Bay area. Her practice and teaching of aikido are influenced by her keen energy awareness, the fluid style of Doran Shihan combined with the exactness of the Iwama style of Saito Sensei.
MacAllister Sensei was promoted to 5th Dan by Witt Sensei in 2010.
As an attorney, she found that the application of aikido principles often helped her resolve family conflicts in her legal cases. She also discovered that the connection with others that aikido develops directly translated to her healing bodywork practice. MacAllister Sensei teaches that the most important aikido is that which we take off the mat, out the door, and apply in our day-to-day lives.