Sounds like you have a good instructor too, and that you kept up with your training. That's the hardest part for me. Some days I just don't want to practice at all. We do try to do demonstrations from time to time, though. My favorites are the weapons demos. All we've done so far on stage are a few different demos for staffs. Spears, swords, and knives present their own difficulties on stage. Someone is going to get stabbed...
For Aikido, yeah, I have some really great instructors and the whole dojo is awesome, we've got some ludicrous number of black belts around so there are at least half a dozen who teach regular weekly classes and half a dozen more who will take over should someone not be able to teach their class. In Aikido we tend to do all our weapons work with jo, tanto and boken, so you might split some knuckles (I have) or get some bruises but usually nobody has to go to hospital if someone screws up, you're more likely to injure something if someone screws up a barehanded throw...
In European broadblade, we wear helms and armour and use padded weapons except for demos, and we don't generally spar full speed with the metal blades when we do bring them out, so we get some really spectacular bruises but so far nobody's had to go to hospital from that class either. So far.
I was shopping for a kilt a while back. Those things are expensive as hell! I think I might just go to the antique shops downtown and buy an old uniform. Kilts are often part of the uniform, and they're usually well insulated. Living in Alberta I like anything that's warm.
Real tartan kilt? Yeah, not cheap, we looked at that for one of our groomsmen at our wedding, but he opted instead for a good blazer, figured he'd get more use out of that... I totally want to get one of those utilikilts myself though. I don't mind wearing skirts but I needs me my pocketses!