dianaschnuth

I’m finding it really fascinating, meeting my various sempai on the aikido mat and seeing how their minds work. I find that I gravitate toward certain people (and try to keep away from others), not so much because of their technique, but because of their attitude.

I find that I take ukemi better (i.e. I fall better) when a powerful and confident technique is performed on me. Hell, being thrown by Sensei is downright fun; I come up smiling almost every time. One of my sempai even commented that I’m falling much better now — I thanked him, but I really wanted to thank him for performing the technique with such finesse. It makes falling easier when my energy is honestly being shifted around, instead of just going through the motions.

Some of my sempai seem to handle me with kid gloves, and don’t put enough actual energy into the movement. It’s difficult for me to turn up the energy when faced with someone who won’t reciprocate. Just throw me. Just do the joint-lock. Don’t worry about my lack of hakama and rank; you won’t hurt me. I learn more from someone who’s doing the technique all-out, no holds barred. —Strike that. I learn more from nage doing the technique at a moderate pace, step-by-step but with a discernible flow, methodically, so I can follow.

My favorite is when I get with someone — there are a few people like this — who takes joy in aikido and puts it into the technique. Several of my lower-ranked sempai are like this. Their technique isn’t flawless, but the energy is there, and the joy is in their face, and they make me feel it, too. The higher-ranked sempai who have this spark in them are wonderful teachers; they won’t let me continue a technique wrong. They’ll just stop and let me start over, or stop and let me figure out on my own how to shift my energy properly. The lower ranks will simply start doing commentary on their own technique aloud as they throw me, so I can think the same commentary step-by-step as I throw them.

I’m not comfortable being the more experienced partner yet, though. I do have a couple of kohai — actually, I don’t know if I can really be said to have kohai, as I’m still unranked, and I’m not sure if the newer mukyu would count as my kohai. I think they would, though. At any rate, the some of the newer mukyu and even a couple of the rokyu (lowest rank) are more hesitant than I about certain techniques. I’m not comfortable trying to say anything to help; in fact, I’m pretty sure that’s inappropriate for someone of my ranklessness. Still, I could lead by example, but the temerity of my partner almost always makes me more timid.

This is all golden. I’m learning so much about myself and my interactions with other people in general.

Bottom line? I need to trust myself more, have more confidence in myself.

This is why I joined the dojo.

Friday night: watched webcast of J. K. Rowling reading the first chapter of Deathly Hallows at midnight British Summer Time (which was 7pm Eastern). Waited a few minutes after that, and couldn’t take the suspense anymore. Downloaded HP7 from a favorite bittorrent website, and read the first 20 chapters before the book was officially released in the U.S.

Saturday: Aikido Basics Seminar from 9am to noon. Lunch at the Garden Cafe with Aaron, then back to the dojo at 3pm for a brief class and kyu testing. I wasn’t testing this time, but it was valuable to watch the testing process, as I should be testing this fall. Hung out at the dojo after class, but didn’t partake in the “pot luck.” (There was some food, but the pot luck was mainly comprised of different kinds of alcohol. Sake, microbrews, champagne…) Got home just after 6pm and spent the evening at home with Aaron. (Deathly Hallows arrived from Amazon with Saturday’s mail, BTW.)

Today: Aaron’s off doing grocery shopping right now. Later this afternoon, we’ll be meeting a co-worker/friend of Aaron’s, and we’ll all be driving up to Detroit for a free festival featuring They Might Be Giants. The one chance I had to see TMBG live, at BGSU, the show was cancelled due to lack of interest (supposedly), so I’m especially looking forward to tonight.

For now, though, I’m going to be reading some more Harry Potter until Aaron gets back from the store.

I thoroughly enjoyed today’s class, excessively short though it seemed. We did an extended version of the warmups we normally do, and certain aspects of it were explained a little more in-depth. Then we broke out into ranks, and us rankless mukyu helped the one mukyu who’s planning to test this Saturday by playing uke (a.k.a. “the throwee”) and letting her toss us around. It was also really helpful to me, so that I could start recognizing and naming some of the techniques I’ve been learning. We also broke things down and I got to play nage (the thrower instead of the throwee) with Roy-sempai. Yes, the same Roy-sempai whom I inadvertently allowed to twist my arm last week. I got to learn that very technique more thoroughly today, so that hopefully won’t happen again.

After that, we broke into mixed pairs to do a few basic techniques. Grabs, throws, nothing extravagant. One of these, though, separated those who could roll (not me) from those who couldn’t (me). I tried being uke once; Sensei saw my sorry excuse for a roll, and took me aside and showed me *again* how it’s done. Not the cool-looking flying around sort of roll that everyone else can do, but a roll beginning on hands and knees. Granted, that’s where I need to start — but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating to feel like everyone’s watching me crawl around on my little corner of the mat, doing somersaults.

Of course, that’s what I need, on several levels. I came to a level of acceptance that I needed with that.

After class, I spontaneously asked Sensei if I could join the Zen Meditation group that meets after class on Wednesdays. He had no problem with that, and took a goodly amount of one-on-one time with me to explain the basics of zazen. He also asked why I was interested in zen meditation, and I may have made my spiritual “search” seem a little more recent than it really was. I “came out” as a non-Christian pretty early on in our conversation, and I inadvertently exaggerated the void that my denial of organized religion had left. After that, I tried to play up the other life changes (job, potential family) to downplay the religious/spiritual. I also managed to throw in the comment from Ms. Beall that I mentioned earlier, and Sensei was aghast that I had such a teacher. “She was a gift,” I believe he said. I had to agree.

The practice itself involved chanting, seated meditation, and walking meditation. The chanting was slightly odd for me — I’ll bet it sounds a lot better in an Eastern language rather than a Germanic language like English — but I think I picked up on it well enough.

I left the dojo feeling relaxed, physically energized/tired, mentally relaxed and alert, and in a particularly good mood.

And smelly. Did I mention smelly? Yes, sweaty and smelly.

Consensus? Wednesday nights at the dojo are a go. I hardly ever want to eat dinner after aikido, anyway, so it works out. Brief class, chill at the dojo, a couple hours of group meditation… sounds like a proper weekly devotional to me.

Woke up this morning. Tried to get out of bed. Hobbled to the bathroom. Grabbed some ibuprofen. Gimped downstairs. Took my ibuprofen and my vitamins and whatnot. Limped to the phone and called in to work. Gimped back upstairs and fell into bed, where I slept for another four hours. Sure, now I only have two days of PTO left to last through the beginning of September, but I’m OK with that.

I’m enjoying aikido. I just wish I didn’t get so damned sore afterward. Maybe then I could do multiple classes in a week, and improve faster. I must’ve been doing *something* right on Monday, though, because now *everything* is sore. I swear. Even my toes. Quads, hamstrings, ass, back, shoulders, triceps, biceps… my abs aren’t sore, and my calves aren’t sore. Every other major muscle group I can think of *is* sore. Which is amazing to me. And frustrating, because I wanted to go to class today, but I can barely get around. If I can’t even kneel comfortably in seiza, and I can barely get up out of a chair, how the hell am I supposed to let myself be flung around and fling other people around? And do somersaults rolls for God knows how long (until I get it right)?

The Basics Seminar on the 21st is SO going to kick my ass. All day at the dojo? Lordy. But I’m still looking forward to it.

After struggling with whether I should continue with aikido or not, I decided that quitting would be kind of silly. Especially after only two classes. So I went to a third class today, and plan to go to a fourth on Wednesday.

Apparently, the Monday one-hour classes are notorious for going over one hour. Had the class only lasted the requisite one hour, I would have been fine. As it was, the class was probably 90 minutes, and I ended up sitting out the last ten minutes or so — “grounding” myself, Sensei called it.

I still have some sort of mental block with rolling — I just haven’t done it right yet, haven’t found the sweet spot so I can replicate that “correct” feeling. Like I told Andy-sempai and Sensei, it’s frustrating to have that feeling that I’m *almost* understanding it, and that it should be easy to understand, but that it’s just not clicking yet. I admitted to Sensei, during my “grounding” time, that one of the reasons I joined the dojo was that I want to get over my problem with feeling stupid. He assured me that I’d get over that, as that’s a big part of the learning process. Everyone gets that feeling, and everyone comes to accept the feeling of not-knowing. I told him that I look forward to getting to that point.

Today’s standard minor aikido injuries / afflictions include a mat burn on the top of my left foot (“the oozy kind,” as Amy-sempai called it); generally weak quads; and an uncomfortably twisted left shoulder, gotten from Roy-sempai from a slightly more complex move when my ukemi (i.e. my submittal to or receiving of his technique) was just a little off. I think it’s mainly true that the only major injuries in aikido are when one or the other partner has improper form, and the technique is done incorrectly. I’m hoping to keep my injuries to a minimum. 🙂

I’m glad I decided not to quit. I feel physically good after aikido — at this point in my training, it’s a cardio workout like I’ve rarely gotten before, even in drum corps. I’ve made it a point to eat well and healthily before aikido classes, and I don’t seem to have any interest in dinner afterward. (Which is too bad, since it sounds like the dojo informally goes to the Brew House for beers after Monday classes.)

Speaking of food, I’m going to make some homemade ice cream. I’d try custard, but I’d like to actually *have* some before I go to bed, and custard requires cooking and cooling time, while ice cream requires no such thing. Next time, though…