• Getting hit/imposed upon is the super big thing to avoid, right? Someone needs to keep control of your line for that to happen. Well, staying moving (in a way that always shifts your center) keeps your line moving which helps avoid someone getting you through it.
  
  
• Keeping footwork simple makes it easier to stay in contact with the ground and grounded (please excuse the pun!).
  
  
• Being short makes it easier to slip under and into someone's gap to atemi them. It's harder to reach up if you need to grab them in a choke from behind, but once you grab them it's easier to control them since they need to lower themselves drastically (and often way out of their comfort zone) to protect their windpipe from you swinging on it.
  
  
• After I do a technique I often take a step backwards rather than take a solid stance. That's what people mean by me running away all the time! I think I won't cope if someone were to hold me there after to stop me from trying to run away, so I think there are issues I need to work on there.
  
  
• I was training with a member's son last night who joined us a couple months ago. He had me in a corner drop, and did an incredibly powerful job. Aikido works. If you can think smart. I think I'll call him Mighty Mouse.
  
  
• I was playing around with one of the guys after class last night, we'd grab eachother and see if we could get out. Well, we ended up wrestling on the ground; geez he weighed a ton, and I didn't have a clue what to do!! This is where other styles come in; different facets of the same diamond.
  
  
• I took a class run by teachers of two different styles. Two different nights. One was frustrating and debilitating. The other was lovely and exhilerating. I learn more effectively and enjoyably from the style from the second, I think that's how I'll turn to a few people as my mentors the more I get further down the track.
  
  
• Techniques develop and get chosen like a flowchart, I think. Positioning in the conflict and a persons strengths determines which branch gets chosen.
  
  
• People can change, and that change can be nurtured by others. Like, I used to be terrified of Koshinage, and last night I did it and after realised that I was having heaps of fun and being afraid didn't occured to me. It's like the very long journey I had for learning how to roll, and that's what makes it wonderful now. I think it was because two guys I trust the most were with me, I'll wait and see what happens.
  
  
• I want to be like an arrow. With my intention and energy. I used to be afraid; all my energy went to that. Then I put all my energy to throwing myself into the meeting point of the technique. Now I want to be direct, effective. I need to learn how to defend myself when I get right in close now, but I'd rather get hit and accept the consequences. That's just how I want to live my life.
  
  
• We can resist, sure. We can also refuse to resist, give way. If someone attacks us and we give way, and the person finds themselves where they wanted to be, I think the confusion of getting what you want can be quite profound. So what does that mean?? I think that's something to chase and explore, because it's worth it.
  
  
• Awareness of self, of others, is a fight and an exploration that's everywhere. Maybe that's why friction is there and everywhere, why rolls and footsteps aren't supposed to have noise if they're done properly. Maybe that's why some trucks have signs on the outside that don't match what's inside them. Or some buildings in the city do nothing except reflect what's around them. Maybe that's why there are train lights that herald it's coming in the tunnel far before the train actually appears. And maybe this awareness is actually our natural state? That would explain why aikido feels so wonderful and send fireflies sparking into our minds and heart; it's just a return to the natural state...