LISTENING TO THE MESSAGE

Classes are offered Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. My body generally can handle two classes a week if I pace my activity during the class (although this Monday I had to bow out and go home for pain medication after the 45 minute warm up which includes aiki taiso).

My usual pattern was to attend Monday and Wednesday. Monday is a basics class taught by a senior student and also attended by a yudansha and a couple of brown belts (including myself); it offers good fundamentals and a chance to slowly start to learn this dojo's weapons kata. Wednesday is the advanced class; following warmups by a senior student, it is taught be sensei. I get the double benefit of her instruction plus feedback from partnering with a variety of senior students.

A few weeks ago, my Wednesday workday was such that I needed to GO HOME and eat dinner and rest. So that Thursday evening, rejuvenated by my "day off" (sewing orders, doing work around the house), off I went to the dojo for intermediate class. The first half is led by a brown belt - warm ups, aiki taiso, weapons. Then sensei takes over for techniques. There were no yudansha; myself and the other brown belt were the seniors that evening.

Sensei commented after class that it was helpful to have another student of my rank on the mat. I thanked her for a great class and noted that, as Wednesdays might be hard for me sometimes due to work, and it is hard for me to train two nights in a row, I'd probably alternate Wednesdays and Thursdays.

The following week, I had to miss Monday night. Wednesday night was such an exhilarating class that I decided to take a chance and double back on Thursday night. Sensei commented after class that it was really good to have me on the mat on Thursday nights.

OK, so after a dozen years on and off doing aikido, I'm still a bit dense about certain protocols. It wasn't until I was driving home that my brain went "DOH!" Of course. I am being asked to chose Thursday nights over Wednesday nights. And of course, out of respect for my sensei, I will do so.

HOME SAFE

What do we need to learn well? How do we push our boundaries?

I've never understood aikido instructors who bully, blindside, pressure or put down their students. How we train is who we become; the student who habitually becomes tense from fear learns tension, no matter that he is being told to relax. I can only think that such teachers think they are Marine drill instructors, and don't understand that the job of the aikido instructor is not to tear down a person and create a new one. This may be the explicit goal of military basic training, but it's well beyond the level of competence and responsibility of the typical part time aikido instructor, whose job is.. to teach aikido...a difficult enough thing in itself.

At the end of 2005, a series of tendon ruptures (not related to training) and worsening arthritis in both thumbs as well as in the bad knee led me to bow off the mat. On top of hurting too much to take rolls and falls, I was afraid of what damage might be done if a partner grabbed my wrist too hard or if I got a thumb caught in somebody's lapel.

At the time, I knew that with certain partners I'd probably be ok. But even though some people were very supportive of me defining my safe boundaries, the instructor was not. Pointed comments were made about people putting limits on their training.

I knew coming up to Ukiah that, thanks to the culture created by Gayle Fillman Sensei, the dojo here would be would be supportive if I decided to try a return to training. When I bowed back onto the mat a couple of months ago, I let it be known that I might not make it past half the warmups, much less doing any techniques. Nobody looked askance when I'd quietly sit through rolling practice or weapons kata done at high speed. Partners smiled and said "sure" when I asked them to grab "here" instead of "there." The instructor set it up for me to work in groups of three rather than pairs sometimes, so there would be less pressure on me and the others could get their full training in.

This past week I realized that I'm pushing my limits and training at a level that, while might not seem so hot to most folks, is far beyond what I would have thought possible when I bowed off the mat two years ago.

Wednesday I was aching through most of the warmups, to a degree that I considered the option of bowing out. I stuck it out. It ended up being a great class. My body and spirit rose to the challenge. I walked out totally energized and pain free, and decided that if I wasn't feeling badly the next day, that I'd break my "no consecutive training days" limit. Thursday I paced myself - sat out during the slower weapons training I'd normally participate in - and ended up having another good class.

I can take backfalls without any problem. I don't do them in warmups, where you are expected to get straight up and fall again and get up again. But when I'm thrown, my falls are fine. And for getting up, the rolling off to one side that served me well since my original knee injury still works if I take it at a good pace. Forward rolls, though, are a problem. I can only do them "properly" on one side. On the other side, my old practice was to turn it into a breakfall position with the leg laid out to avoid kneeling on the bad knee. But now my arthritis is such that any landing on that side is painful. My line is "I have one roll a night in my body." Some nights I take it, some I don't.

Tonight's class ended with a line technique in hamni handachi: nage kneeling, each person would attack with shoulder grabs, nage would do a simple turn and throw. I decided to try it. On one side, I took the forward roll. On the other side, I turned into a backfall. There must have been nine of us in class, so that would be eight turns through the line. When it was my turn to be nage, I got into position on one knee and figured out to which side I could pivot.

It's amazing what a person can do when she feels safe, secure, and cared about.

THINGS WE DON'T KNOW WE KNOW

Written as a self-assignment to write SOMETHING since my knee precluded going to the dojo to train tonight...
Every now and then, an unanticipated question is asked. After a couple of moments to gather my thoughts, I launch into a long disquistion that covers both the basic mechanics, so to speak, of the question at hand, plus some philosophical commentary on the topic, maybe linking it to other issues or speculating on its implications.

It is always astounding to me when this happens (and I imagine to the questioner as well...). First, it’s generally a topic I’ve not been thinking about recently. So it’s a pleasant surprise to realize there is something useful knocking around in the gray matter, not just the lyrics to 40 year old rock songs.

Even more surprising, though, is to listen to a torrent of words issue from my mouth expressing an apparently fully formed analysis about the subject, from a distinctly personal perspective, when in fact I had never consciously pondered it at all until the question was asked. So it seems that I “know” more than I think I know.

Now, with skills, at a certain point internalized ability is expected. There's no doubt that tomorrow, after doing landscapes for six years, I could set up a usable pallet for a seascape. Each time I’ve come back to aikido after an injury, I was able resume directly working on whatever puzzle or issue had been the latest training conundrum.

In sewing, where I have more concentrated experience and, compared to either painting or aikido, actually expect myself to achieve mastery, it’s a delight to put the past to use. Last week I decided it would be a good idea to make some light cotton skirts and vests for when the temperature starts hitting over 90. Within a few days I’d drawn from memory onto fabric an odd pocket design from a 25 year old Carol Little shirt pattern, freehanded and cut side insertion pockets, again from memory, and after a quick check of a patternmaking book for a specific mathematical formula, folded and cut fabric on the spot for a circle skirt.

But in the realm of conceptual or intellectual knowledge, I don’t expect to function so well. The question that's posed might have to do with anything from politics to natural science to house-building - things I’ve never studied formally or consider myself particularly well-versed in. Yet I’ve been a voracious reader since the age of five and I guess all that stuff is IN THERE, roiling around, the synapses making connection when I’m not paying attention. As I write this, John Brunner’s “Stand on Zanzibar” comes to mind. When I read it as a teenager, I was struck by one of the main character’s job: taking in lots of information and then integrating or synthesizing from seemingly disparate threads a meaningful narrative or trend. Hey, I thought, I’d be good at that. I guess back then I sort of knew how my brain works. And now I still don’t know just what it is I know.

LEARNING FROM EVERYBODY

Basics class. The attack is a static cross-hand grab. We run through ikkyo, then shihonage, then kokyunage (iriminage to the Aikikai folks). The focus is to be on the turning center, always a valuable place to check in.

I partner first with a woman about my age and slightly junior to me. We start slowly and slowly pick up the pace. We exchange minimal verbal feedback, lots of kinesthetic feedback and are smiling broadly as we bow out when finished.

I partner next with a preteen boy with very little experience. He needs to parse it out and have verbal coaching from me to walk through shihonage; he is not living enough in his body yet to pick it up kinesthetically from my ukemi. Our instructor comes over to help coach him. I stay in my role as attacker for quite a while rather than switching after four times, letting him work on it until it makes sense and he experiences the success of moving through all the gross movements without coaching.

I partner next with a man younger and larger than me and about my peer. He is attentive to my disability and wants to be a good partner. When it comes to technique he does not seem to have a good sense of the tools that will help in connecting us (such as entering to my blind spot). I am aware that when it is my turn I am allowing an opening for him to turn out. We exchange some verbal feedback and get into a rhythm, eventually moving to a dynamic rather than static attack.

I had a thoroughly enjoyable class. Each partner showed me something different, let me feel and think about and work on some different part of the puzzle that is aikido.

I cannot imagine anybody trying to "learn aikido" from books or movies or anything that does not involve engaging with another sentient being.