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All I can say is wow!
Michelle and I participated in our first practice last night!
Let me just clarify that, despite having experience in Martial Arts, I haven't practiced in quite some time...
Long enough to lose my tone and flexibility at any rate!
My arms feel like lead, my legs feel they have 10lb weights tied around them, my wrists were wrenched every which way and I feel FANTASTIC!
I kid you not! Nothing compares to the ache after a good training session. Those of you that are regular practitioners, you know what I mean and those of you that are new, you'll soon find out .
You'll grow to love that pain.
The session started like the others with the exception of me being on the mat, in a Gi and very, VERY nervous. We went along on a "not beginners" night as I like being thrown in at the deep end.
That's just my particular learning style, if you're not comfortable with it, don't do it.
I'm not going to name every technique we covered for 2 reasons;
1. There were a lot of them and,
2. I don't know the names of them all!
All I can tell you is we covered Ikkyo, Nikkyo, Sankyo and Shihonage.
As I said, last night was WAY above my level but I have well and truly caught the bug and so, I believe, has my beautiful wife-to-be!
I know you guys probably aren't too bothered because you don't know us that well but I just want it documented how proud I am of her for last night.
For someone to go into a non-beginners class and maintain her level of conv
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Having previous martial arts experience was a real boost for me when it came to choosing Aikido. I'd previously studied Wing Chun and Ninjutsu so I was already well aware that my passion lays with Martial Arts (second only to my beautiful fiancé - more about her later ).
If you're reading this, you probably found AiKiWeb the same way I did;
Our friend Google! Never underestimate how useful Google can be.
A quick search for "Martial Arts in Cambridge" quickly turned up a link to the Cambridge AiKi Dojo. Magic says I!
Having bounced around their website reading, practically, everything I could get my hands on I decided that Aikido was what I wanted to do.
Now... My fiancé!
Her Martial Arts experience equates to slapping me if I misbehave and Jackie Chan films. Absolutely nothing.
However, with a little encouragement from me, coupled with her desire to learn some form of martial arts she agreed that she would accompany me on a test visit to my local dojo!
A day or so later I placed a call to the Sensei and sought his approval to come along and observe a training session. He, very kindly, allowed us to come along.
My first impressions of the dojo were fantastic.
Everyone observed proper etiquette, down to the smallest detail and we were greeted almost immediately by one of the Dan-ranks.
After a brief explanation why we were there he quickly arranged us some seating and simply requested that we keep the noise to a minimum. He then returned to setting out the
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