Aikido as a way of life.

What a difference a day makes. Tuesday night I was a half a bubble off all night. I hurt one of my ukes. Hurt not injured. I felt bad. That stayed in my head for a few minutes. I went to “I suck”. The good thing is that Aikido is so interesting to me I could not stay there for long because Ron was teaching something cool. I had to pay attention despite my venture into self loathing. Then I had a nage that wasn’t taking my balance. It seemed to me that nage was getting impatient with me. Their heaven hand kept landing on my clavicle and pushing. It is not very effective but it does cause pain. I got to watch a thought of “why don’t you just quit Aikido?” march by in my mind.  That is a drastic thought for me. I have a dojo right at my house, for Christ’s sake. I had a little chuckle at my negative thoughts and attacked my nage again. This time I just fell down because my clavicle was getting sore. Last night I showed up again. I started class after doing my warm ups and a whole ...

Shiho nage was a difficult technique for me. Ron always did it a little different from Maruyama, Sensei. I would be almost getting it then we would go to summer or winter camp and I would get confused again. I could do the motions of it and it probably didn't look to bad yet it didn't feel strong. My hands always felt so weak. I remember complaining about my wrists. men's wrists were so much bigger and stronger. I used to say I hate shiho nage or I can't do it. Of course that became self fulfilling. I decided to change my mind about it. I couldn't say I loved shihonage yet but I said that "I am embracing shiho nage". "I am exploring shiho nage." Sure enough, it got better. Especially after we stopped going to camps because now I was doing one way with minor changes instead of a whole change of technique. The "Summer of Shiho nage" changed everything. Stepping into my fears and frustrations was the key. I broke it down to three ...