My Intro.

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[arachnoJill]

My name is Jill and I took my first Aikido class tonight. My legs feel like jelly, but I am very happy about it overall. I am taking the class with my husband, Johnny and we have a 9 month old son, Shawn. I work as a nanny for 2 children and bring my son. I think this will be a good outlet for me. I spend most of my day in children's land and I have found Aikido to be a nice escape. I am surprised at how good I felt after and even though I am tired, I feel energized at the same time. It is almost as if this was a piece of me that I was missing for a long time, but didn't know it. I have always had an interest in MA's, but always thought I couldn't do something like that because I am small framed and not the most coordinated individual in the world. The reason Aikido appeals to me is that anyone can do it and the intent is to disable and not to harm.

Johnny and I keep tarantulas and currently have about 30 of them. We used to have many more, but have scaled back since the baby. One of the spiders we have, the Goliath Birdeater (Theraphosa blondi) has a 10" leg span. Another, the Greenbottle Blue ( Chromatopelma cyaneopubescens), has brilliant blue legs, a green thorax (back) and an orange abdomen.

My only other hobby is posting on message boards about my hobbies, either about my spiders, my boxer, my kid, and now Aikido. I have always found message boards to be a useful resource in any of my hobbies.

I look forward to sharing experiences with you.

[Janet Rosen]

Welcome, Jill! I was an older, uncoordinated beginner but also felt like the aikido mat was where I belonged right from the first class. Yeah, the jellylike feeling goes away!

[Benjie Lu]

Hi Jill and welcome to the message boards. I'm glad that you had such a positive first experience with aikido and it is my sincere hope that you enjoy the art of aikido and continue to pursue it for many years to come.

As to your other hobby, hmmm.... Very interesting I would have to say, the Goliath Birdeater is the largest spider in the world right? What do you feed it? Live birds? =)

[PeterR]

What I really want to know is the truth about these babies (http://www.e-budo.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25744) currently being discussed on e-budo.

Not tarantulas but you've got to know more about them than the peanut gallery.

Welcome to Aikiweb and your first off-topic discussion.

[otto]

Wow Peter sure waked me up with that link...

Jill Welcome....

If you are the same "TarantulaLover" from E-Budo , whats style are you doing now?...or are you still with Soke 10th Dan Grand Master Shihan Hummerstone founder of Aiki Tora ryu Aikido? ;)

[Greg Jennings]

Wow Peter sure waked me up with that link...

Jill Welcome....

If you are the same "TarantulaLover" from E-Budo , whats style are you doing now?...or are you still with Soke 10th Dan Grand Master Shihan Hummerstone founder of Aiki Tora ryu Aikido? ;)
Mushin Dojo is associated with Alan Drysdale. I've been e-friends with Drysdale for years and attended a couple of his classes at the Aikido-L seminar. He's great people.

GIBYA,

[otto]

Morning Jennings Sensei..

Just to clarify a doubt on my part , are you reffering to this dojo in particular ?

Aiki-Tora-Ryu-Aikido (http://www.international-karate.net/AboutSchool.html)

If so , I would be greatly interested on hearing your opinions/experience with them....of course , if youre willing to share them with me....

Sorry for the Thread Hijack Jill...

[rachmass]

She has started with a different teacher Otto; one who is under the guidance of Alan Drysdale, not Hummerstone.

Welcome Jill!

[otto]

Apologies if my failed joke attemp caused some misunderstanding , tought the thread starter would understand it...

Really glad for you Jill , tough...y bienvenida otra vez.

[Greg Jennings]

Otto,

Thank you for your courtesy.

I've never heard of the Aiki Tora bunch.

Being in the region (USA Southeast), I was curious and spent a minute or so on Google.

Mushin dojo, where Jill indicates she trains now, is an outgrowth of Enmei dojo of Alan Drysdale Sensei who is associated with the Aikido Schools of Ueshiba of Saotome Sensei.

I know and greatly respect Drysdale Sensei and wanted to make sure that Jill and everyone knew the straight story.

Best regards,

[akiy]

Hi Jill,

Along with many others here on AikiWeb, I'd like to extend my "welcome!" to you! Sounds like your simple introduction has spurred on some discussion already!

-- Jun

[PeaceHeather]

Hi Jill,
My first lesson was last Wednesday -- and, while I was spared the jelly-like feeling, I got to have lots of dizziness and nausea... bleah. I'm very prone to motion sickness, and I was practicing rolls.

Anyway, welcome! We can be newbies together!
Heather

[arachnoJill]

Wow.....what to address first. Johnny, my husband is Tarantulalover on Ebudo. I posted once or twice under his profile before I figured out I could get my own if I logged him out first. He had taken a few lessons of the Aiki Tora Ryu, which started that whole debate. One good thing to come out of the debate is that we found our current dojo, Mushin dojo, observed a class and decided to attend there instead. From the little we know, we found the more traditional Aikido to be more appealing because while the Aiki Tora Ryu DOES concentrate on disabling your opponent, it seems to do so in a manner which could cause more harm. We felt a very good vibe from the moment we stepped into Mushin Dojo. As stated before, it is associated with Alan Drysdale and my sensei is Jim Saba who is just wonderful. We had a great experience and found all of the people in the class to be easy to work with and the environment is very positive.

As for the spider link. I think Johnny may have answered that on Ebudo, but I will give my own. Those arachnids are real. They are called Solifugae, commonly refereed to as "sun spiders" or "wind scorpions." There are many different species of them all over the world, but they happen to get really big in the Northern African-Western Asia areas. I know there are lots of smaller ones in California. They are not quite spiders and not quite scorpions, which is what makes them interesting to me. They do not have fangs, like spiders nor do they have long pinchers like scorpions. Instead, they have pincher-like mouth-parts where the fangs are on spiders. It is almost like they are the evolutionary link between spiders and scorpions. They are not especially venomous. A black widow would do you more harm, but the pinchers they have are very sharp and could really put a hurting on a person or large animal because they are almost like 2 small pairs of scissors. Here is a link with a really good photo of the pinchers so you can see what I am talking about: Photo of a Sulfugid (http://www.coastofdiamonds.co.za/photo/Solifugae.htm) Notice they also have 10 legs instead of 8.

Well, I hope I have addressed all of the questions that were asked. In case anyone is wondering, my legs STILL hurt today!! I am a nanny and am constantly lifting 1 or 2 kids at a time with my legs, so I was really feeling the burn today. I can't wait to go back and I totally see how addicting is can be to get thrown around on the mat.