Article: Aikido "Poetry" Selections by Paul Schweer [Archive]

Chuck Clark

03-05-2002, 07:53 AM

Jun,

Thanks for putting Paul's poetry here. I always enjoy it. Paul grew up about 20 miles from where I lived and had a dojo, but he was into music instead of budo back then. He's also put his time into the Marine Corps. He gets big points for that! To top it off, when I felt his heart at the end of my arm during aikido keiko, I knew I had made a friend.

Thanks again.

Regards,

Bruce Baker

03-14-2002, 06:50 AM

It is pleasing to see the poetry that begins to describe Aikido.

Sometimes the humanity of the struggle evades us, as did the times of Mark Twain/Sam Clemmons of another by gone time. I don't think that anyone person trys to become a writer, or a poet, but that little something in them just makes life so much easier writing it down and seeing it in another form.

These poems I see, the way they are written, reflect many of the physical terms that become apparent with continued practice. The middleage blues that come with growing older are just the beginning of adapting to the third phase of life, the first two being child to young adult, and adult (20-35 years old).

It is funny how we begin to exchange health/ illnesses information as we grow older in an attempt to circumvent the almost impossible? The humanity of missing our compatriots as we grow older, maybe wiser? This becomes the pathos of our drama, while the physical practice of Aikido is the meeting of old and new friends, in the park come to talk on a sunny day.

Injury? Illness? Family obligations? These are the things that take us away from the practice of Aikido, placing it second to family and religion ... where it should be. But if you are daydreaming about it while you are away, like the consuming thoughts you had before you married your spouse, or when you worry about where your kids are when they haven't come home at the correct time, then Aikido is another part of your life.

Poetry? Gotta love it!