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3/23/04
After a really long and trying weekend it was nice to be on the mat again.
This weekend a very special friend of mine managed to drive her motocycle into a guard rail doing over 50 MPH. She shattered her knee and broke her ankle pretty bad. Luckily that was all that she hurt. After 5 hours of surgery she is going to have a long recuperation period, but she is alright.
Her husband who was with her at the time called, and said motorcycle accident, Jan, come, San Jose…. We sorted out where in the heck it was using mapquest, and headed down there at breakneck speed in the car. Jan beat us all there by getting a flight in the life flight chopper. We got to the hospital just after her husband did. She was just coming out of X-ray, and getting ready for surgery. Her husband and I held her hands, and spoke to her, as she got ready go into surgery. My wife and I hung out with her husband in the waiting room, and then spent the rest of the weekend, and all of Monday there helping the two of them.
How does all of this relate to Aikido? Jan asked me to stay with her in her room when she got out of surgery because I was the most grounded, and energetically centered person around. This was a real surprise for me, as I am normally not grounded, or centered. I laughed at her, and said; "me"? She said yeah, you have made amazing progress in both centering and grounding since you started Aikido. I do know that I did not loose my temper at all in the entire weekend, in a situation that I found extremely stressful. I even managed to deal with the absolutely incompetent Comfort Inn hotel staff without raising my voice. Probably a first for me in dealing with incompetent customer service people, (And I had not been to sleep for more than 2 hours in the last 48 at that point). Afterwards even I was amazed at this. I actually felt proud of the way that I dealt with this situation instead of feeling that I should have done or said this or that….Aikido is making a difference in my life in ways that I would have never foreseen.
Today we did a variety of techniques on Morote Dori Ikkyo, we did it slow, and really worked on the footwork. It was great. I was really tired, having only gotten a nights sleep in the last 3, so my brain was sluggish. It was great to be on the mat, with my Aikido friends. What a wonderful thing to be able to do both Mentally and physically, I know how much I meant it at the end of class when I said thanks to all my training partners.
03-23-2004 05:00 PM 