COLORS OF THE SEASON

Kitigawa Utamaro: Dragonfly & poppies

"This dragonfly has dyed his body autumn"
--Bakasui

I wake up in the dark and reach for corduroys and knits in shades of green and rust.

A partly pieced quilt top starts in pale yellows and runs through the earth tones to end in deep forest green.

I look up, close my eyes, sniff the wind. Change is in the air. It is a good season, somehow, for weapons kata. May my strikes be as crisp as the Arkansas Black apples that spill from my basket.

MAKE YOUR CHOICES

If I use the shovel too much, I cannot use the jo or the bokken.
If I walk too far, I cannot do aiki taiso.
If I sew too much, I cannot grasp or pin.

If I do too much, I have to take meds, and cannot train.
If I think too much, I get a migraine and cannot train.

When I can keep things in balance, I get to do some of everything every week.

TAKING RESPONSIBILITY

I'm used to teaching informally; it's been part of every nursing job I've ever had. I've enjoyed teaching beginning painting in small classes or for individual students, and have mentored a particularly talented and hardworking sewing student (who is now a costume intern at ACT!)

But it's been several years since I've been part of an aikido community in which I really had a role to play in the sempai/kohai relationship, that Japanese tradition in which students (or employees, in any given setting) at each level have a responsibility to support and teach those junior to them. As Rocky Izumai points out, it serves many useful purposes in the aikido dojo. For me, it contributes to mindfulness in a couple of ways.

The first is that there is a general awareness that I'm expected to be a role model. So besides working on my technique when I train, there is a greater sense of polishing my attitude: how am I interacting with everybody? how well am I carrying out what is asked? One thing I'm working on now is not overtly revealing my frustration when my hands can't quite do something "the right way;" instead, being calm so I'm not a disruptive presence and so I'm receptive to what the instructor is suggesting.

The second is that it calls for taking a wider view - maybe both a little more zanshin and a little more "distant mountains" gaze - seeing the larger picture of what the dojo needs. For instance, last night after class, Sensei asked a teenaged student to please fold the hakama of one of our black belts. He went over to do so, but grumbling slightly about not knowing how. I asked Sensei if she'd like me to offer to show him, and she said yes. As it happened, I ended up as kohai getting clarification on which folding method is preferred, and as sempai, demonstrating it start to finish for my kohei. It felt very satisfying.

Which may be one of the most enriching parts of the sempai-kohei relationship (in a healthy dojo culture): it provides a concrete albeit changing role for each dojo member, building true community.