Our School
Open Sky offers a full schedule of classes in two martial arts: traditional Aikido for adults and teens, and Chen-style tai chi classes for adults. Open Sky is an official member dojo of the United States Aikido Federation.
Our chief instructor, Steve Kaufmann, Shihan (master teacher), is a 7th degree black belt in Aikido and long-time student of Tai Chi, with over 40 years of practice and teaching. Steve is now semi-retired, teaching regularly in the Duke PE program and occasionally teaching at Open Sky. The dojo manager, Mike Dolan Fliss, 4th dan, has been training in aikido for over two decades and martial arts for over three. Both Steve and Jesse Kaufmann and Mike are longtime Tai Chi students, including years of training in Chen-style Tai Chi with Grand Master Wang Haijun. We are fortunate to have many dedicated advanced students and instructors at our school.
Our dojo believes in diversity and inclusivity and that they actively benefit our practice.
Location: After 20 years in Hillsborough, Open Sky Martial Arts has reopened in a brand new, beautiful location at 131 Boone Square St., Hillsborough, NC, located in the Triangle region of North Carolina, an easy drive from Durham, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Mebane, and Efland. See our contact page for more information. See below for a time lapse of our build.
New Students & Visitors
For questions about the aikido program, including visiting to watch class or train, please email us at aikido@openskymartialarts.com. For questions about the Tai Chi program, please email us at taichi@openskymartialarts.com.
New students (& parents of older teen students) interesting in starting practice can now contact us to discuss options or visit class. Though we have in the past and hope to again, at this time we are not offering young children’s classes.
Please join our listserv for timely updates about closings, weather, etc.
(NOTE: During the pandemic our school only accepted fully vaccinated – including booster when eligible – new members. We have dropped this requirement for the time being. See our COVID-19 page for details.)