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Last night was rough, I am really new to Aikido, about 4 months 3 classes a week now. Since my first day I have been doing Shiho-Nage and the finale has always been the same, pull the wrist to the floor. Last night Sensei told all student 3rd Kyu and up to do tobu, anyways I started practicing with a Senior Advanced student. I attacked yokomen and he did Shiho-Nage on me, then my turn, I am still concerned about getting the basics down, I grabbed his wrist turned and then proceeded to pull down reflexivey. Oops, forgot he was supposed to do tobu ukemi, just about killed Uke in front of Sensei. I tell ya, I would have been pleased not to have ever made a mistake like that.
So far no-one has ever taken tobu on my sloppy beginners Shiho-nage and so I did what came natural to me after all the practicing of pulling the arm down. But, it is good the I realized as my knees began to bend that my pulling hand felt less pressure and became a point of rotation, I realzed in time what was happening and stood up. Had I not done that there could have been a serious injury. This is a major lesson for me, not only to be extremly careful, but that this just goes to show that when I attack as Uke mistakes can happen and I have to trust these guys with my life, and one day I will be the senior and someone else the beginner, pray to the Gods I am as lucky as he.
Anyways smoking has been an incredible hinderence to my practice, rolling causes my to feel like dying, and periodically during practice I feel myself unable to move because I can't breathe. It's especially a pain during Randori, I do well once and a while and when that occurs my breathing halts me. So Monday Janruary 9th 2006 I put a patch on and since then Aikido has gotten easier. I have tried quitting before and failed, but New Years practice was testing of Spirits by holding Chi Gung postures. My point is that I guess I am weaker physically than I thought, Holding my hands up at shoulder level caused me to feel like my shoulders were being ripped out of the sockets, my arms would drop. But every time they dropped from pain I would pick them right bachk up again knowing full well how they would feel, knowing that I had still a whole half a class left of this torture but I want to prove myself to myself and so I kept going through all the shaking and seering pain in my muscles and joints. Test of Spirit, I may have failed at physical strength but, I see now that I am a man whom if stabbed in battle would pull the sword through myself just to strike the enemy one last time. Smoking, is nothing, strange it was Aikido that helped me realize this.
01-13-2006 12:46 PM 