<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

<!--
	Downloaded: 05-22-2013 01:41 PM
	From AikiWeb Aikido Forums, http://www.aikiweb.com/forums
	Userid: 18106
	User Name: Daisy Luu
-->

<blogEntries>
<blogEntry id="4622">
	<title><![CDATA[A Lesson in Humility]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[It’s one of those words in the English language that has morphed into another meaning over time, but unlike “Xeroxed” or “Googled”—representatives of corporate giants so successful that they have encouraged world-known verbs from their company name—“humility” has taken a turn for the opposite direction. In its essence, it means “the act of being humble.” Once, you were raised to have humility. Now, society asks you to do more, be more, strive for more. “Humility” is now equal to lowering your eyes in shame, being made fun of by that throng of bullies, an uncool word that you wish would never be used in the same sentence as your name. But once in a while, you get a lesson that gives you time to ponder the original meaning of humility.

I spotted a hole in the leather bottom of my aikido weapons bag the other day. The sharp end of my bokken was peeking through the middle of the seam where the thread had unraveled from years of use. It was the first time I thought to treat my bag more delicately since I bought it, and I walked to class that day grasping the ripped end closed in my fist as if it were leaking blood. Wasn’t I once the little girl who stayed on an impoverished island for years with my parents as we were awaiting our immigration papers? At an age where children wallowed in too many toys to play with, I had cried in the middle of the market square for a glossy red apple, too stuck on the rarity of fruits and their lacking in our food rations to even think about owning a doll. 

The next morning, I thought I’d patch up the weapons bag myself before work. It was just a straight-seam rip, and I don’t own a sewing machine, so I took out my thread-and-needle sewing kit, stored in a mid-Autumn-festival mooncake tin as my mother had done before me. It took a while to turn the long, narrow bag inside-out to get to the bottom leather flap. As I tried to poke the threaded needle through two layers of leather, I was in for a surprise at how thick the material was, how difficult to make two simple holes across what now seemed like a sea of leather. I broke the first needle trying. Feeling annoyed, I thought it’d be easier to chuck this bag and buy a new one off the internet. But then that little-girl-on-island memory came back to me, washing over me with a wave of shame. Not all things in life can be bought. A weapons bag, yes; a good lesson, no. And when you can’t buy it, you have to find another way. I threaded a second needle, put on a thimble, and tried again. 

Fixing an aikido bag is surprisingly much like practicing aikido. What looked simple at first could catch you by surprise. You think you could do something in “x” amount of time, only to find out minutes later that you couldn’t even get started. Slightly discouraged but now with greater concentration, you attack the problem again. How do we tackle tasks that seem impossibly huge? One thing at a time. I learned that running the needle through one flap of leather first and then sealing the hole with the second flap was more manageable. It was slow-going and tough, but at least I was making progress. That mountain moves after all, albeit slowly. Halfway through sealing the rip, I discovered tiny holes in the leather that marked the original thread pattern. Going back through the holes, following in the footsteps before me, was less effort than trying to make my own way through the leather. There were secrets in the lesson, if only I looked closely, found them, and put them to use. 

It wasn’t long until I turned my weapons bag outside-in again, the bottom leather flap completely mended with two reinforced lines of thread. I stuck my weapons back in—bokken with the blunt hilt down this time—tucked it back in my car’s trunk where it belonged, and headed off to work. Tonight, I go back to training with a fresh perspective on humility, wearing the oldest gi I own, rips and tears patched up over years of use and memories.]]></body>
	<date>09-18-2012</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4610">
	<title><![CDATA[Aikido Wedding]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Recently, I married the man I met 11 years ago in an aikido class at the university we were both attending. As a nod to how we met, we added a fun "martial arts" theme to the wedding, making a sign-in book with photos from our engagement session where we each donned martial arts clothes, and adding a martial arts demo for our reception walk-in with the help of some current dojo friends. We customized our cake topper to look like this:

[IMG]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GaX5nuyvBLE/UEpI5GMM-pI/AAAAAAAAB54/K0NJtEiFFEs/s1600/Final+Topper+on+Cake.png[/IMG]

Ever wonder what happens when an aikidoka meets a San Shou practitioner? It can only be love :ai: . Enjoy our Love Story on YouTube!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olN7bCPZfFM]]></body>
	<date>09-07-2012</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4442">
	<title><![CDATA[Just a Pinch]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[I am sitting in the patient chair, making a fist as the lab technician ties my upper arm with a band and swabs the soft skin at my elbow juncture with alcohol. The slight shock of cold is the most unnerving part, the sensation of the body being touched by another. Deftly, the technician inserts the tip of the needle into my vein to draw my blood.

I remember back to when I was young, fighting my mother as she hauled me by the arm into the doctor's office to have my blood drawn for routine examinations. I screamed and threw the full weight of my body against her to resist being taken into the exam room, but I was so small and she was so strong. The more I cried, shouted, and flailed my limbs, the stronger her grip became on me. How could I resist this force? The more I tried to pull away, the harder I was drawn to it, meshing into her body as a single unit as she picked me up and held me close, her arms wrapped around mine to discourage the thrashing. 

"It's just a pinch," she'd say to calm me, "a bite from a tiny little ant." Tears traced rivers of salt down my cheeks, dripping off my chin. I stared at the needle in the nurse's hands, this giant metal tip that would soon stake claim in my body, taking away my blood, my essence. The room smelled of antiseptic and the nurse was dressed in sterile white, the color of mourning and death. The crisp wax paper on the exam bed crinkled loudly beneath me every time I shifted positions. There was no escaping two strong, full-grown women in a closed room. Terror magnified in my head and reached invisible tendrils to bind me, knotting up and entangling around themselves, rooting me down. My mother steadily pinned my arm in place and held it out to the nurse, exposing the vein, her gentle words breaking through the dizzying cloud of fear to soothe me.

There is just a pinch as the technician injects the needle, and I am a grown woman, calm and collected and watching my dark-red blood fill the test tube before gauze and bandages are put on the tiny pinprick wound. I think of how often in aikido fear can magnify itself within the limitless constructs of the mind. When I run out of breath and my test is only half over; when a technique is called that does not quite register in my head; when a very large, mountainous uke grabs me by both arms and flings me aside like a pillow and I lose all motor control, or I have to perform a koshinage or force myself to take a high fall on my bad side, or when I'm sitting seiza at one end of the dojo, that split second before I am charged at for a round of jiyu-waza--I am a lost little girl with all the world against me, and fear rears its monstrous head, threatening to tie down my flailing courage. 

This is when I think, "It's just a pinch." Over before I know it. The pain will be fleeting, the hurt will be little, and I would have overcome all this within a few minutes' time. There is that soft, distant little voice that quells my fluttering, frenetic thoughts. And I stop resisting. And I let them in. And this is how we grow to conquer our fears.]]></body>
	<date>02-27-2012</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4376">
	<title><![CDATA[Snippets from my Pre-1st-Kyu Dreams]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[The nights are cold in the dojo, the darkness comes down fast, and I prepare to test. I watch others on the mat who will go up for the same rank, the way they struggle and brain-freeze through their practice sessions, and I fear that it will be me. I throw my all into my own preparations, absorbing advice, releasing tension, trying to get it right. In jiyu-waza, I adjust distance, timing, speed. 

“Keep your distance, but don’t back off.”

“Draw out our uke, but don’t get in too close.”

“Be grounded, but don’t bend over when throwing.” 

“Harder, softer, faster, slower.”

I take all these mis-matched jigsaw pieces of advice, pondering over how to make them fit.

After class each night, my overworked brain and body know only the carnal desires of a hot shower, a simple meal, and a good rest to heal up. When I sleep, I dream the exhausted dreams of someone who has spent hours preparing, weeks of practicing, months of anticipating. Under the covers, there is not enough air. I am doing jiyu-waza and gassing out fast. I run out of techniques, forget to blend, am incapable of keeping it up. I run into a rock, something hard and immovable. I am holding my breath, putting my strength into it, but something is wrong. 

“Where is your shihonage?” someone asks. “Find your shihonage.”

I am standing before a great iron door, rapping on it with my small knuckles. The knocks sound feeble and hollow, echoing down the long halls on the other side. The door swings open, and it is cold and dark within. An invisible presence impatiently awaits my question.

“Where is my shihonage?” I ask it. “I cannot find it. Please, will you help?”

The darkness comes toward me, swallows me whole, and I am falling. I grab onto an arm with a morote grip, and I am launched into a stemi. The hard ground comes up quickly to meet me, and I struggle to turn my body the correct way.

“Tuck your head. Head down, feet over.”

I land with both feet sunk into the mat, elbows resting on knees as a weight on my back pushes me down.

“Bend your knees. Get down lower. Look away and whip it!” This is koshinage, do or die.

Someone is telling me something, half prose, half song. I try to grasp onto the voice, but a jarring sound cuts through my dreams. My alarm clock is waking me up for another day. Another step closer to the Ikkyu test this weekend. Ready or not, here it comes. Soon, it will be go-time.]]></body>
	<date>12-07-2011</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4331">
	<title><![CDATA[Dark]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[There is a dark side to every moon. Aikido has always been my light, but lately it has built stones around me to create a well, and I am trapped at the bottom, looking up toward a pinprick circle of hope. The cold stone walls are wide and slippery, and I lack the strength to climb out.

I am chest-deep in ocean waters, trying to understand the finer details of techniques one at a time, but the corrections and critiques come too quickly, like currents of irimi-nage waves that wash over my head, riptides pulling me out to drown.

I am a little girl alone in the big, bad woods, bright red cape billowing behind me as I race against the wind. The woods are dark and deep, and I stand out to the creatures that hide there because I do not blend. I do not own the night. I know where I want to go, but never has it been harder to get there. Silver moonlight filters weakly through the stark tree branches, casting jagged shadows along my path.]]></body>
	<date>10-19-2011</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4301">
	<title><![CDATA[Wanting]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[The first time I seriously looked at the test requirements for 1st-kyu, I had a mini panic attack. Blends, attacks, and techniques came together in a dyslexic blur of words on the page—why were there so many? There were those requirements that touched upon my weaknesses: koshinage and high falls and all these ushiro-waza that I was certain to brain-freeze on. More henka-waza with three technique requirements from different attacks, and I couldn’t even think of a single way to make it work. All those things that I was forgiven for at a lower rank, and all those I avoided practicing because I thought I had time to push them aside. The mere thought of what I couldn’t do won over all that I had already accomplished, stripping away my courage like a coat of old paint, exposing the ugly fear underneath. How could I have gone so far and feel like I know so little? Why does every step toward Shodan from this point on feel like a backtracked step away? Confused and discouraged, I tucked away the test sheet, ratty and worn from my notes and studies for previous ranks. I always carried it with me but opted not to think about it much as life took me on its customary ebb and sway of social events and busy schedules. But the time to test is upon me; Sensei doesn’t remind you three times without expecting some progress.

Recently, there was a health fair at my company, and I opted to take the usual assessment tests such as BMI, blood pressure, cholesterol-screening, and lung-capacity measurements. I was the picture of good health, even after over five years of being sedentary at a computer for 8-10 hours a day, and I realized it’s because I took time after work to practice aikido and keep my body running strong. I must not give up and deviate from this path that has proven to be so good for me. At the health fair, they also raffled off some fun prizes such as first-aid kits, car-emergency road kits, and—among the grand prizes—a Kindle e-reader. It was the only prize I wanted. The Kindle I bought for myself had been stolen not too long ago, and as I dropped my raffle ticket into the fishbowl, I had the feeling that it would be the prize I would win. It was there just to be claimed by me, one out of the hundreds of other employees who entered. Funny how intuition works, because at the end of the work day when they sent out the list of winners, my name showed up next to the Amazon Kindle.

As winter approaches, the days grow shorter, and it feels like you have less time. When I step out of the dojo after the hour of regular training, the moon shines brightly, and the sky is peppered with stars. I spent a summer forgetting, neglecting, enjoying the warm rays of the sun without thinking ahead, without preparing. The long journey lies ahead with me working through techniques on the test sheet, sweating through the night long past regular class, shivering through the cold months as the dojo loses its noontime heat, getting ready. Even now, writing about it is hard; it makes me commit for it to happen, making it real. But sometimes, despite the odds, you throw in your ticket, and you enter. Sometimes, the test is not about the knowledge of techniques, but the ability for you to surpass your insecurities, conquer your fears, and better yourself in the process. Sometimes, you’ve just plain got to want it badly enough. So I make myself look at all my Sempai, the ones who wear the brown belt with the black stripe. And I know that it will soon be mine.]]></body>
	<date>09-15-2011</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4228">
	<title><![CDATA[Upon Stepping Back on the Mat After a Week]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[It shouldn't be too hard, coming back after a little over a week. There is the familiar smell of freshly-varnished wood floor, the new smell of wall paint, the faint scent of Zebra mats, the warm displacement in the air hinting at the arrival of summer. Putting the gi and hakama back on, tying the fabric in place, tugging at the loose ends to smooth out the uniform, even that is a comforting reminder of how it should be. I line up, clap to bow in, and the training starts.

And I thought I paced it right but suddenly everything seems to speed up, and Sensei says for everyone to give it an extra 20 or 25% more speed, and Sempai goes around to tell us the same thing: "Get back up! Attack, attack! Hurry up, let's go!," and I feel the impact of the mats with every takedown along my back, my calves, my palms as I slap the surface, and feel the bruises starting on my knees and elbows, those sharp joints that have had too much time away to remember the conditioned pain, and the sweat starts on my forehead and slides into my brows and eyes, and I could feel the beads glide down my front and back underneath the shielding layers of shirt and gi, pooling at the cinched belt, soaking into the fabric like tears on snow, and the summer air is more apparent now—thickened and heavy with the scent of collective perspiration—and suddenly there seems to be not enough of it as I forget to keep my breathing rhythm and start to gasp, but don't look at that clock because the minute hand has not changed, it is stuck forever at the half-hour mark with no momentum left to begin its grueling climb back to the 12, and the second-hand is not that much more cooperative to my mental plea, so look away and don't think at all about time, and go for that wrist and fall down and get back up and fall down and get back up and fall down and get back up and roll and roll and roll and let's not allow those muscles weakened by illness betray me, or focus on my lack of coordination or my decreased sense of balance as I struggle through vertigo to get even the simplest of techniques right, and I get physically worn and mentally frustrated while thinking, "Come on, Sensei, have mercy," when suddenly he yells out, "[I]Owari masu![/I]"—"Let's finish!" and his resounding clap ends class, and I melt into a pool of gratitude in my place during line-up and pant during the bow-out.

See? That wasn't so bad. Sensei catches me afterward and says, "Welcome back to the mat, Daisy." I smile, bow, and say thank you. It's nice to know the mat and the people on it missed me as much as I've missed it and them.]]></body>
	<date>06-22-2011</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4211">
	<title><![CDATA[Apothecary]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[One month later from the start of May, and I’m sitting here wondering if my next blog entry would finally be one that doesn’t involve the subject of illness. May 1st started me off with a normal cold/sore throat, which led to an extended cough that required antibiotics, which really didn't help as the cough transitioned into seasonal allergies. I got my first migraine ever coming back up from a Southern California trip. I had to schedule an emergency dentist appointment to re-seal a tooth’s crown that suddenly popped off during flossing. Just a few weeks ago, even my work computer caught a virus. But the worst that happened was I caught a stomach bug and ended up missing the entire annual Gasshuku at Lake Tahoe.

It must have been adrenaline that got me there, and every day, I woke up in the hotel room with the hope that I could hobble to the gym and train at least one session, only to have that hope shot down by yet another trip to the bathroom. As I lay groaning in bed, wishing it could have been any other way, I wondered if I had been a bad Buddhist lately and missed a vegetarian day, or forgot to help my fair share of old ladies across the street to get that big of a karmic kick in the butt.

It must have been adrenaline that got me back. The prospect of home, of comfort foods my body was used to processing when it’s ill, of the Bay Area’s signature warm and healing sunlight instead of a white world of wind and snow. With four days and five pounds lost, it was difficult to stand without needing to lean onto objects. The night I came back, I stood in my future mother-in-law’s kitchen, watching her prepare my evening meal. When she learned of my ailment, she threw a handful of raw white rice onto a nonstick pan, roasting the grains over the heat until they turned a yellow-brown color. Rice—a staple in most Asian diets—has been known to have healing properties to the digestive tract. Roasted rice tea, thought to promote a healthy digestive system, is a common beverage served in Korean restaurants. 

She told me that roasting the rice kills off the milky-white substance that the stomach cannot digest when it’s ill, leaving behind the nutrients that coat the lining and sustain one’s energy. Her late grandfather was an apothecary, and he left behind these simple kinds of treatments to her, along with a topical wine medicine that I have countless times used on my aikido bruises and sore joints to help them heal. In poor villages in Viet Nam, most families didn’t have the money to buy Western drugs. They didn’t have knowledge of or access to the full Bananas-Rice-Applesauce-Toast-Yogurt (BRATY) diet for stomach ailments. They worked with what they had to survive on bare essentials, and through time, their DNA adapted and learned how to process these staples. Despite everything I tried to eat in Tahoe—toast, crackers, yogurt, wonton- and chicken-noodle soup—my body refused to hang onto anything. But somewhere deep in my blood and bones, it remembers the simple miracle of roasted rice. Aikido teaches me how to live, but in her kitchen that night, I was taught a way to stay alive. I brewed teapot after teapot of her rice, mixed with ginger to warm the stomach. I cooked and ate the solid grains, along with a bland soup of fresh vegetables and lean meat, as my stomach became able to hang onto food. Slowly and surely, I started to heal.

It could have been a worse trip. I could have wound up in the Tahoe emergency room if I wasn’t able to keep hydrated. I do miss the three days of training, the priceless group dinners with good conversation and great friends, the bear sighting, the weapons work in the snow. But you do learn something from every momentous passage in your life, and this time for me, it wasn’t jo awase or sudden technique epiphanies. It’s what your body truly misses and desires when it’s down. It’s a reminder that without good health, nothing else matters. And it’s these invisible tendrils, reaching out across oceans and time, that bind me to my roots, that resurface in a lesson of who I was, to shape who I am.]]></body>
	<date>06-02-2011</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4201">
	<title><![CDATA[Against the Grain]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Time flies, like a kite cut free of its tethering string, borne on the fickle winds, fluttering and drifting aimlessly against a backdrop of dark clouds and gray sky. In between being out of town and being sick, I hadn’t been to the dojo in over a week. A week on break from training feels so long, and my internal sense of time gets knocked off kilter. The hours bleed into days, and I forget where in the week I am without the benchmark training evenings to regulate myself. 

It serves me right for being healthy for such a long streak—I knew that whatever I got next, it would be heavy enough to knock me out for a while. Memories of the last few months’ events drift into my prescription-drug-induced unconsciousness, of Sensei badly injuring his knee during the Hawaii Doshu Seminar, of his surgery and time away from the dojo. Sensations of jo training with Sempai lace my dreams; I am struggling to manipulate the jo to bring him down in a shihonage, but the wood bends in the middle and refuses to lend me its strength. “The wood is strongest along the grain,” Sempai tells me, “so extend through the jo.” I understand, but I cannot physically move to make it work. Sweat drenches my brow and soaks into my shirt as I sleep. It’s all I want to do for a long while, and I shun the sensations of consciousness and the healing sunlight to stay in that Sandman world where I hope my body can heal.

But I do wake. Yesterday, I stepped back onto the freshly-varnished wood of the dojo floor. My body feels weak from muscles left unconditioned and from the release of antibodies to fight the foreign intrusion. My lungs ache from the constant, hacking cough that still lingers. But Sensei is there for his frequent visits, hurt knee free from the clunky brace, and now walking without crutches. He’s been off the mat for a lot longer than me—since February—so I know I don’t have a right to complain. He inspires me to heal, shows me that if you work at it, it becomes possible. I bow in, and I take it easy during my first evening back, but I still sweat and struggle. My coughs bring forth a copper-tinged taste of weariness, like there are holes inside of me that bleed out my energy and passion. I have been off the mat, but I have never stopped fighting. It feels like a constant battle against the grain to get better and regain my strength. How can I blend and make it work? “Take it slow, but don’t baby it,” Sempai would advise. “Keep training,” Sensei would say. So I do. I take slow and steady steps back onto the mat, say “[I]Onegai-shimasu[/I],” and give the best that I can from this body recently broken.]]></body>
	<date>05-11-2011</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4135">
	<title><![CDATA[Jiyu Waza and the Limbic Brain]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Sensei was discussing with me the concept of the limbic brain, the part that controls our autonomic nervous system. More familiarly, it is the system that regulates the "fight, flight, or freeze" instinct when we are confronted in a dire situation. She points out that in the wild, a lot of prey enter the "freeze" state when captured by their predator: once it feels the lion's jaws lock in on its neck, the antelope's body goes stiff as it mentally discharges from reality, defaulting to the natural instinct that helps keep it from feeling pain. If the lion accidentally slips, the antelope seemingly comes back to life, rigid body contorting in a few spastic shakes. Where just a moment ago its body prepared it for death, survival instinct kicks back into gear just as quickly, the nervous system pumping jolts of adrenaline to re-activate every fiber of muscle and allow it to get away.

Underneath this human skin, we are primordially the same animals, experiencing similar urges during a physical confrontation. Depending on our natures, we default to one of the three responses, and in aikido, this is arguably most apparent when we practice jiyu waza, free-form attacks and defenses. Unbound from the confines of repeating a demonstrated technique over and over, perhaps nothing is quite as liberating—and as intimidating—as being allowed the freedom to attack and defend ad-lib. Jiyu waza is aikido's closest to a competitive martial art's concept of sparring in that you never know what attack will come out from the person you're facing off with, or how your body may respond. When students get to practice it for the first time, they may tense up when they see an attack coming: the instinct to freeze. Or they may back up a few steps to give themselves room to think: the instinct to flee. The first step of doing good jiyu waza, before you get to refining ma-ai and technique precision, is to mentally overcome those two instincts that come most natural. Moving instead of freezing allows you to blend with your attacker, kicking into gear those techniques that you had to practice over and over to ingrain them into your muscle memory, to prepare you for this. Going to your partner and drawing out the attack instead of backing up helps you claim that open space and dominate.

For the students new to jiyu waza, for the timid or unsure or unconfident, even for the ones that tend to be over-analytical when given free reign to respond to an attack, it could be quite a challenge to start off in the right state of mind. Your body's screaming at you to do something other than what you think is best to protect yourself from pain. But over these primordial animal instincts is human skin, coupled with human logic and the ability to define courage, to push strength. Standing off in preparation for jiyu waza, take a moment to claim control over your limbic brain. When "hajime" is called, it's time to fight.]]></body>
	<date>02-16-2011</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4112">
	<title><![CDATA[Vertical Impairment]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[I have always known the world from this petite point of view, from this five-foot frame that puts me mostly neck- or sometimes chest-level with those whom I am facing. When I need to react quickly to an attack, I focus on people's torsos and not their eyes, anticipating how the body draws back for a punch, or how the hips shift to gear up for a kick. Used to this perspective, I do not usually notice how tiny I am until I see pictures of myself lined up with other people. Sometimes, I overcompensate by lifting my arms too high for an ikkyo, or reaching up too far when attacking with a shomenuchi. I do this unconsciously, but Sensei keeps me in check, lectures me about being sure to bring my training partner down to my level.

I guess I've chosen the perfect art, founded by a man who was roughly my height. In aikido, the taller person adjusts in order to do an effective technique, and the shorter person stays in his or her comfort zone. I've heard my fair share of short jokes, and I've gotten used to sassing back, "Try living off rice and salt or rationed sardines for your growing years and see how tall you grow to be." Yes, I feel dwarfed in what seems like a dojo—and often a world—filled with giants. Yes, when someone runs at me full-forced during jiyu-waza, I fight a brief moment of panic at the idea of being steam-rolled into the mat. Yes, it's a challenge when you've got less muscles and tiny hands and wrists. But just because you are short, it doesn't mean that you're not confident. And just because you are small, it doesn't mean that you can't be strong. We all have our uphill battles, things to overcome to get our aikido "just right." The sooner we embrace the challenges, the faster we can start working on conquering them. Besides—the weather is great down here.]]></body>
	<date>01-27-2011</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4109">
	<title><![CDATA[Legacy]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Sensei's knees have been bothering him lately; he couldn't get into seiza anymore, and he'd bow the class in and out by standing in front of the shomen. He would start demonstrating a technique and then remember that he couldn't get down into a seated pin, so he'd change it into a technique that didn't need one. At the end of class when it came time for our usual closing of kokyu dosa, he'd have two Sempai demonstrate it instead of calling up an uke. After class when some of us students would get together and practice for our tests, he'd sit aside in a chair and preside over us. He'd gaze onward with a look I know well--that "being on the sidelines" look, that uncertainty of whether an injury will ever properly and fully heal, that look of longing for what his body was capable of before. It's the chink in one's armor, the realization that there exists a kryptonite to our otherwise unwavering practice.

But despite his reluctance to demonstrate seated techniques, I still see Sensei's passion in the art, his dedication toward his students, and his determination to pass on his own teacher's legacy. When a white belt was struggling with the concept of[I] te-katana[/I] during kokyu dosa, Sensei gingerly got down on his knees to show him the proper alignment of hand blades and hips. When another student couldn't quite bend at the knees low enough to do a proper shihonage on me, Sensei had me hold on to his wrist so he could demonstrate. Mentally, I protested, "Don't do it if it hurts, Sensei." But logically, I knew the familiarity of pushing through the pain and the "inconvenience" of whatever got between you and your aikido.

I get a flashback of my grandmother's old kitchen, a dark yellow-and-brown linoleum floor, upon which rested a pestle and mortar. She was showing me how to pound the ground-pork-and-shrimp mixture, getting my wrists to learn the repetitive grinding and turning motions that transformed the solid chunks into a sticky, fine paste for one of her trademark recipes. "The texture is what makes the meatballs come out just right," she told me. I noticed her struggle in her squatted position on the floor, wanted to ask her if she needed to take a break while I continued to pound the meat, but the determination in her voice as she was lecturing stopped me. Out loud, she was saying, "Let's continue." Inwardly, she was hinting, "Let's continue because I don't have much time left to teach you this."

Last night, I dreamt I could do perfect high falls. I sailed into the attack, understood perfectly where that taking-of-balance point took place, and flipped through the air carelessly like a dolphin taking off from the waters to do somersaults against a background of sky. I landed with the grace of an ice skater, got up, and did it again and again. There was no panic at the point of take-off, no sloppy rotation that demanded more spring, no jolting pain upon impact with the mat. But then I woke up and realized that, as much as I admire them, I am still intimidated by high falls, still terrified of taking ukemi for koshi nages. I still can't do some of the jo suburis, and I'm not certain I can get through the entire 31 jo kata by myself.

Those before us will always strive to pass down their legacy, and we the students will struggle to learn and perfect it. Sometimes it seems like time stretches out before us with its infinite patience and generosity; but once in a while, a chink in the armor reminds us that we may not have as much sand in the top half of the hour glass after all. What would we be able to accomplish before the last grain falls? How much of that rich but elusive legacy could we hope to grasp and pass on to those that come after us? [I]Tick-tock, tick-tock...[/I]]]></body>
	<date>01-23-2011</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4063">
	<title><![CDATA[Uniform]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Sensei says that aikido is like a uniform we wear for as long as we train in the art, even after we leave the dojo for the day, for we practice its principles both on the mat and off. Those shihonages that torque my wrist are like the annoying tag that I forgot to cut off, sharp edges jabbing into my sensitive skin. Those ikkyo pins that send a stab of pain shooting up the bad elbow are like the garment’s chafing, stiff collar, hard to ignore. I have to stop yanking on my ikkyo uras and remember to use my hips during the turn; after all, it’s not the skirt that keeps riding up. Those breakfalls look unnatural on me, and I confess they’re not my usual style, though everyone seems to be quite taken by them these days. And those koshinages, bane of my existence, both because I am so bad at them and yet long to do them right so badly—they stick out like flyaway threads gone awry and untrimmed. 

I’ve never been one for uniforms. Throughout school, even though I admit to the weirdness of the Goth, heavy-metal, and flamboyant-fashionista looks, I understood them to be an expression of individuality. Uniforms, I felt, suppressed that freedom and creativity. But something about my aikido uniform I’ve gotten to like, the ritual of getting into and out of it almost every day. I like the loose, billowing hakama pants, how they’re just long enough to tuck my feet in the skirts for warmth as I sit seiza in the cold winter months, awaiting instruction. I like how the stiff koshiita, which I despised at first because it hurt my back after doing rolls, now serves as a reminder for me to keep my back straight. I like pulling my long hair back in a sporty ponytail and clipping the flyaway hair in barrettes to keep it off my face as I train. And though I used to think that all uniforms are the same, I’ve come to appreciate the uniqueness and quirks of each of my gi’s.

I haven’t yet completely broken my aikido uniform into the tell-tale signs of hard use. Sometimes, I’m groping in the hakama vents to pull down a gi jacket too intent on riding up. Sometimes, the hakama has its rebellious days, refusing to fold at the correct creases. But I will get to owning it like a second skin. I will continue to practice and exercise until it looks good and fits right on me.]]></body>
	<date>11-17-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4042">
	<title><![CDATA[Being Sempai]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[I remember when she had just joined the dojo, a female comrade amidst the sea of men, a bit bumbling and awkward, not unlike myself, questioning her own techniques, muttering self-criticisms through training. I remember her bowing into me, holding onto her narrow wrists, feeling out the movements of her body, seeing her potential. She showed up regularly to train and progressed fast through the ranks. 

As I sit in the middle of a line-up bifurcated by the shomen, I try on this role of being Sempai like new clothes, these attempts to explain techniques for the first time to curious Kohai. I pay closer attention to where to put my hands and feet and thumbs, how to stand in correct posture for various techniques, and how to point the toes, so I can tell them correctly when they ask me. In my dojo, junior-ranking students initiate the attack, and I get used to those little things like allowing myself to be grabbed first at the start of each new techniques, or positioning us so the uke falls to the outside of the circle and not clash into those training behind us. 

Sometimes I hear my Sempai’s voice in my head as a self-reprimand, or hear him echoed through my own words: “Stay on the mat—don’t throw off.” “Switch feet.” “Twist your hips.” Kohai tell me, “You make that look graceful,” or “I wish I could do that like you,” and I remember thinking that about my Sempai before me. Familiar now with the basics, I am not frantically trying to memorize what to do when Sensei demos; instead, I start to think about why we do it, how we can do it in a varied form, or how we can reverse it with another technique. 

My Kohai asks me to be her uke for her 3rd-kyu test. She self-censors a lot, constantly questioning whether or not she’s doing it right. Balance, timing, technique precision—she struggles with the things that we have once or are still seeking to get right. But there’s strength in her throws, commitment in her practice. She goes at it hard every single time, never lackadaisical, and takes in mind every single criticism or comment. At first, I show her how to do it harder, hurt me more. Then she gets so good at it that I have to ask her to ease off for the sake of the achy ol’ injuries. She’s got one killer ikkyo pin that I’m sure she can use to immobilize any unwary street assailant.

Despite the constant self-doubt, muttering, and even humming during practice, I am surprised to see her be able to shut all that off on the day of her test. She does well, performs nobly. Afterward, new belt in hand, she comes bounding up to me, bows, and thanks me for pushing her, for teaching her. I thank her back for pushing me as well, and for teaching me lessons that I can only learn through experience, from being a Sempai.]]></body>
	<date>10-20-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4035">
	<title><![CDATA[Visiting Skys Sensei]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[It had been over five years since I had seen him last. How long, exactly? Six? Seven? Time is like the wind and rain making its mark across figures carved into the rocky mountainside—subtle, but sure and inevitable. I met him when I was a young freshman in college, insecure, unsure, straggling into the dojo to find something I was yet unable to name. I left him to seek my Master's degree, my mind full and buzzing with too much English literature and creative writing concepts to have room for aikido. I said goodbye to him and the campus to venture into the world of corporate, where I was taught completely different lessons, foreign and new. But something called me to him again, so I went to visit him in Fremont for a training session.

Nestled in the back of a building complex, Sunny Skys Sensei's dojo stood with its sakura emblems painted on the front glass, the characters "Ai-Ki-Do" standing straight and proud. Being inside the dojo brought me to another world of zen temples and the sounds of nature: two doves cooed to us as we trained; instrumental music played, muted in the background; the sound of flowing water from the koi pond softened the hot morning with its cooling sound. Weapons racks holding bokken and jo stood mounted on the far wall, the Zebra mats felt sleek and cool beneath my bare feet, and the lavish studio mirror reflected my posture, my too-wide hanmi. The dojo was white and bright and made me feel welcomed.

I bowed into new training partners throughout weapons and taijutsu classes. Skys Sensei would walk around and try out a technique with various students. He'd instruct me to keep moving, not give up so quickly on a technique by showing how, along any given point, a reversal can happen. He'd teach me flow by making me go after his hand to grab, moving it around just out of reach so I'd be chasing it like bait. I remembered that feeling of being caught up in the moment, my sole intent to go for something just that little bit beyond my reach, exhilarated by the chase, fascinated by the nearness of capturing it. Just like learning aikido, its many secrets and subtleties, reaching for those epiphanies that make meaning out of confusion. After all these years, Skys Sensei is still teaching me the same lessons: Don't tense up and relax. Keep it flowing. Train with an empty mind and an open heart, wide and endless like the sky.

"We start out learning aikido from our teachers and peers," Sensei said as we lined up to bow out that morning. "And when I was there, I wanted more, so I looked for aikido in books. And where I was there, I wanted more, so I looked for aikido in movies. And still I wanted more, so I looked for it on the Internet and then YouTube. There's a wealth of information out there, but that's not where aikido is. Aikido is here," he said, tapping on his heart. It's true our aikido shows bits and pieces of our Sensei and Sempai and all our aikido idols whose practices we try to emulate. They peek through our techniques like holes in a fence, appear in brief glimmers and flashes. But everyone's aikido is at least a little different, as are all our journeys on this same, well-worn path. How we individually do aikido is a reflection of our own heart and spirit.

Time passes, and the winds sweep across the desert plains, altering the terrain, shaping the surface of sands with age. But one thing stays the same with Skys Sensei and me: our passion for the art of aikido, a tether to what is true and constant in a forever-changing world. This is the part of me that was yet unnamed all those years ago, that inexplicable longing that came to be fulfilled on the mat, and I'm grateful to him for helping me find it.]]></body>
	<date>10-08-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4029">
	<title><![CDATA[Swimming: To My Teachers]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[It was the end of September, and the usually mellow Bay Area California weather finally lashed out with a late-summer heat wave. I thought about going to train in 90-degree heat, boxed in the un-air-conditioned dojo, and quite unconventionally decided to play hooky by going to the swimming pool instead. I raced the sun through traffic on the way home, hoping for some light to be left, but it was fueled by the adrenaline from the swiftly-approaching autumn and sank below the horizon for an early rest. By the time I made it to the pool, the evening glowed in soft moonlight, accentuated by pinpricks of stars.

I dangled my legs calf-deep in water, always too cold at first, watching kids throw neoprene balls at each other and listening to the joyful, careless sounds of their playing. Finally, I plunged in, engulfed in chlorine, shocked by cold, allowing my body to go through the familiar motions of finding the surface and then staying on top of it. The first time back in a swimming pool after over a year away, it always seemed daunting. The length of the pool stretched out before me, and I was afraid of the point where I knew the bottom to dip down too deep. It was my "tiring point," made more acutely so by my awareness of its existence, by my acceptance that if I got winded or got a cramp, I couldn't simply dip my toes down vertically and feel for solid ground. 

I took a few easy laps across the pool's width and thought how strange it was that swimming was one of those skills that you wouldn't forget once you'd learned, like riding a bike. No matter how long it had been since the last time you had done it, you intuitively reacquainted yourself with the balance and familiarity to perform the same actions again.

I got to thinking about my high school teacher who taught me how to swim. I remembered her face, how it loomed above me as she carefully watched me treading water for the first time, expectant and hopeful, but also alert as soon as I sank, ready to shove the long, metal rod into the pool to fish me back up. Then I remembered her name, her voice, and her mannerisms. How interesting that we never forget our best teachers, those who had taught us an invaluable skill. Those tutors and instructors and mentors. Those professors and Sensei and Sempai, there to pace alongside us paths that are new to us, worn and familiar to them, always onwardly supportive and encouraging.

Before I knew it, I was clumsily stroking my way up and down the pool's length. I wasn't taking in oxygen rhythmically, gulping for air when my lungs felt deflated, slapping the water with my limbs.

"Keep your back and knees straight as you kick," my swimming teacher said, and I did.

"Don't forget to breathe," Sensei said, and I didn't.

"Relax," Sempai said, and I allowed myself to.

I no longer fought the water but let myself blend with it. I stopped struggling to bring my head above the surface for air but turned it from side to side, laying my ear on the water as if it were a pillow. I stroked my arms in its soft, velvety coolness, let it flow around me as I passed through. I released the pressure in my jaws, unconsciously clamped tight to resist the water's intrusion, let my cheeks deflate from the useless breath that I kept there to bloat up my face. I relaxed, and I swam. Who knew that even though I went to the pool that day, I ended up doing aikido after all.]]></body>
	<date>10-07-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="4009">
	<title><![CDATA[Shadow Training]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA["When you are injured and decide to come watch class anyway," Sensei said, "there is a word for that. In Japan, they call it ‘Shadow Training.' You are still training, because you pick up things while observing that are not so obvious when you are absorbed in a technique." In the last few weeks, I've managed to bust up my left knee doing something I don't even remember, and my lower back from taking a bad fall from koshinage. I can't say I've gotten clumsier lately, as I keep up with my stretching and take care of myself through class, so it must be that the training has gotten more intense, and I am trying out different techniques and ukemi that I have not touched upon much before. These are the first few injuries that actually took me off the mat, but because I cannot resist the pull of the dojo, I come to watch. 

Learning with the eyes is different than being able to feel it out with the body. You catch more things by observing other people's postures and movements, and yet you miss that element of trying it out for yourself. I take notes, keep my eyes on the mat, and even catch my hands going up now and then in an effort to imitate Sensei's movements. This is my body's way of yearning to get the motions right. I get frustrated when I see how a technique should be done correctly, but cannot mirror it myself. So much of aikido is based on feel.

I think back to when we were doing [I]kaeshi-waza[/I], reversals. To turn a shihonage into a kokyu nage, there is this brief transition of turning around uke and extending the leading shihonage arm from the center to set up the reversal. This transition was something I had trouble on, and no matter how it was explained to me in different ways, I couldn't grasp the concept. Finally, Sensei had my Sempai perform the technique on me, so that I'd be able to get a sense of the movements involved. It's hard to describe what it felt like—the movements were so controlled and concise, the extension was swift and sure, leading my body out and around a certain way, and then I was wrapped in this brief, spiraling feeling like I was caught in a cyclone before my arms were lifted below the elbow and my body was launched forth in a kokyu-nage throw.

I think of how I can replicate that when I get back on the mat. But while I sit on the side, I pay close attention, absorbing aikido into memory, mulling over the concepts, grasping at the shadows to form words that make sense in my mind.]]></body>
	<date>09-03-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3997">
	<title><![CDATA[2nd Kyu – The Brown Belt]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[We were standing in the dojo on the second floor of Yosh Uchida Hall in my former college where I used to train. I had joined the Karate Club after coercion from some friends, and one of them ranked as a Brown Belt in karate-do. He was teaching the class that day before our Sensei came in to take over, and he was walking us through the first kata. It might’ve been my second club meeting, and I was trying to memorize the next few steps of the short kata. Sempai paced the room as he counted, “One.” [I]Ki-ai[/I]. “Two.” [I]Ki-ai[/I]. Still keeping count, he walked up to me and effortlessly readjusted my balled-up fists a few degrees to where they should be. I remember, at that precise moment, glancing down at the brown belt he wore and thinking, “No way I could make it that far in rank. I don’t have the strength, will, time, or endurance.” Everyone around me breezed through the first kata, crisp and precise in their movements. And there I was, couldn’t remember beyond Step 3 by the time I had fumbled through the entire thing from beginning to end.

This past Saturday, I tested for nikyu. I have to give props to my uke—I know not everyone wants to prepare a whoppin' two-and-a-half months before their actual test, and without complaint, he stayed many overtime dojo nights willing to be tossed around by me. He worked through the sore shoulder and the yonkyo bruises and the snagging of his toes on mat seams coming up from a roll. He put up with me tripping over him during shihonage from hanmi-handachi; falling on him during jiyu-waza; ramming his face into my knee during kaiten nage; me running into his knee during a poorly-timed sweep-attack from suwari waza. He showed patience through my inability to grasp the basic concept of sankyo ura, for not extending enough, or turning enough, or stepping back far enough. And when the test was over, he told me what a good job I did, even after having gone through all the ugly of the preparation process.

My three Sensei each gave me a point of critique after the test for me to work on as I continue training:
1.) Watch the hanmi. It's often too wide. 
2.) Step back more for irimi and for attacks from ushiro ryote dori.
3.) Tighten the ma-ai during jiyu-waza.

And for the positive comments:
1.) I am decisive, focused, determined, and crisp in my techniques.
2.) I move in an "aikido-like manner." When I asked what Sensei meant by that, he explained that after I got up from pinning my uke, whether from called-out techniques or free-form jiyu waza, he noticed the way I walked or got back into position. He said I was spiraling and scanning my environment. I told him it was totally unconscious, and he told me, "Good!"

On the mat that day, there were only three women, including myself, among the fifteen-or-so guys present. The one comment that really made my day was when a mother of one of the students taking a test from the kids' class walked up to me and said, "It was an honor to see you test." I was genuinely surprised and touched—I never thought doing my best would honor anybody. As the world fell away when I was concentrating on my test, I had even forgotten that I had an audience, and here was this woman visiting the dojo, actually engaged and watching me the whole time.

It was ten years ago when I admired my friend’s brown belt and telling myself it was a goal beyond my reach. The Monday after my nikyu test, I suited up in the Ladies’ Room before training, wearing my newly-earned belt for the first time. A rush of pleasure and happiness flooded over me as I wrapped it around my waist, akin to finally owning an article of clothing I’ve waited years and years for. I thought back to that young girl who didn’t quite believe in herself, who didn’t think she could possibly make anyone proud, who probably would never get to wear a brown belt. Well, here I am.]]></body>
	<date>08-18-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3992">
	<title><![CDATA[Why I Know I Have Aikido Issues, List 2]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[More epiphanies that reveal why I'm an aikido junkie. This is a follow-up to [URL="http://www.aikiweb.com/blogs/hinagiku-18106/why-i-know-i-have-aikido-issues-3748/"]List 1[/URL].

   1. When my massages get too painful, I have to fight the instinct to tap out at the masseuse.
   2. I have a tendency to open swinging bathroom doors with a kokyu-ho extension of my hand blades.
   3. Sometimes I find myself practicing various aikido hand positions in my cube at work.
   4. Long power outages at work make me want to do weapons suburi in the semi-abandoned parking lot.
   5. I think about aikido: while working, while driving, and while sleeping.
   6. Instead of counting sheep, I sometimes recite aikido techniques to sleep.
   7. I've waken myself up from a dream of a break-fall by slapping the mattress.
   8. I've thwacked my significant other and even myself in my sleep as my body executes some random technique on subconscious auto-drive.
   9. When I'm at one end of a long hallway, I have the sudden urge to get to the other end by doing forward rolls.
  10. I've taken to holding my kitchen knives the way I hold my bokken: distinctly with knuckles on top.
  11. I've effortlessly (and accidentally) sliced clear through the plastic container of a yogurt drink bottle trying to cut through the plastic encasing. I blame bokken suburi #1.
  12. I once used a [URL="http://www.aikiweb.com/blogs/hinagiku-18106/shomenuchi-in-the-cleaning-aisle-3987/"]shomenuchi strike[/URL] at a store to keep a falling baking soda packet from konking me on the head. The packet ended up bouncing off my fingertips and landing in my shopping cart.
  13. A coworker almost ran me over while riding a Razor scooter too fast through the building, and to save myself, I clipped him in the gut with an atemi.
  14. I hydroplaned on a wet bathroom floor and managed to catch myself on the sink counter before falling.
  15. I beat up a vending machine that stole the last of my change while I was starving. By repeatedly striking it with my hand blades using a kokyu-ho extension, I managed to get it to cough up my bag of potato chips.
  16. I now have use for athletic tape.
  17. I've had discoloration, callouses, mat burns, skin gouges, and scars on my feet from sitting seiza and taking ukemi.
  18. About half an hour before class starts, even on the days when there is no class, my body gears itself up with an adrenaline rush.
  19. Some nights coming back from training, I've passed out over my dinner.
  20. Showing off and comparing bruises with classmates have become an acceptable and entertaining pasttime.]]></body>
	<date>08-13-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3987">
	<title><![CDATA[Shomenuchi in the Cleaning Aisle]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[It wasn’t the brightest idea. But it did make me think about the instincts that develop in us over time. I was in the cleaning supplies aisle at Target, looking for those pods of Arm & Hammer baking soda with the suction cup, designed to minimize odor in refrigerators. Lo and behold, the coveted items were stacked on the top-most shelf. I quickly analyzed the bottom shelf: too flimsy for me to stand on for an extra boost. The baking soda was stacked a bit further back from the shelf’s edge: conveniently just out of my reach. I was like the prehistoric squirrel in Ice Age, eyeing the prized acorn. I don’t know why I didn’t walk the few steps to push the “Assistance” button at one of those stations scattered around the store. It was mainly laziness, but I’m not surprised if there was some stubborn pride mixed in there somewhere.

I decided to make a jump for it. I needed four packs and was able to snag the first three with said Michael Jordan technique. However, things went awry with the fourth packet, set even further back on the shelf. The first jump got it to slide further to the edge. The second jump was meant for me to grasp it in my hand, but I miscalculated, and the packet flew into the air, seeming to aim straight for my head on its way down. Out of sheer instinct, my hand shot up in a shomenuchi-like strike/block, snaking up the centerline of my vision and extending upwards to guard my head, just in time for the airborne packet to bounce off my fingertips and land smack into my shopping cart parked behind me. I distinctly remember pausing for a bit to analyze my body position and noticing that I had gone into hanmi stance, one arm with a clear extension from my center, palm-down, the other arm coming down from the shomenuchi, mouth gaping in shock that the baking soda flew right into my cart. 

Darned proud of myself, I finally noticed the couple in the same aisle, looking up from their decided brand of laundry detergent to give me a funny look. I quickly wheeled my shopping cart out of the cleaning aisle with newly-acquired baking soda, reflecting upon the clarity that can ironically come out of one of those stupid things to do.]]></body>
	<date>08-10-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3982">
	<title><![CDATA[Solidity]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[“She is hard to throw,” Sensei comments about me as he helps fix my training partner’s hand positions to launch me into a kokyu nage.

I protest, utterly surprised, “No, I’m not!” 

I check my own posture, try to loosen up, make sure I am not inadvertently giving my training partner a hard time. Just the other day, my other Sensei told me not to “strong-arm”—that is, stiffen up my arm to resist techniques and potentially laying my elbow open to damage in the process. I don’t mean to be stiff, and I’m still struggling with the fine line between giving an appropriate amount of “feedback” without going limp noodle, and resisting a technique in a way that may be deemed excessive. Usually, I’m the smaller one in the partnership, and my various training partners seem not at all to struggle as they launch me effortlessly into the air, my limbs flailing every which way as I lose balance, or driving me hard into the mat. Sometimes it’s almost comical, and I envision Wile E. Coyote falling from a cliff and leaving a large imprint of his body’s outline in the ground, like a snow angel on the canyon floor as that crafty Roadrunner peers down and chuckles. Instinctively, I’ve learned to resist, so as to lighten my impact with my long-time friend, the mat.

“Yes, you are,” Sensei insists, and he seems more pleased than crossed. 

“But I’m very light,” I say. Surely, I must be easy to throw, even if that day I happen to be training with another woman who almost matches me in frame.

“You think you are, but you’ve built up this solidity from training that makes you hard to move. In a couple more months, you’ll be like a rock.”

I’m pleased with the compliment, but it’s hard for me to believe. Me? Solid? In my Iwama-style dojo, we stress the idea of aiming to be “hard to move”—it gives your training partner a good workout and teaches you the importance of maintaining your own balance. I’ve always thought aikido was all about flowing, softness, and motion, but here I learn to do it a harder, more solid, and steadfast way. Most times, I’m unaware of these slight changes with my technique; it’s subtle, like when I look into the mirror and realize that my hair has grown out really long since the last time I cut it. Only when Sensei points them out that I check myself and start becoming conscious of how far I have come.

Next week I take my 2nd-kyu test. I’ve been practicing for a little over two months. 2nd-kyu is a rank that first demands jiyu-waza on the test, and last night I went a few rounds with my uke. Once, I ended up losing my balance trying to overtake his and falling into a most un-aikido-like heap. Gosh, how embarrassing—I really hope I don’t do that during the actual test. Maybe my new-found solidity will rear its head out of hiding and lend me strength.]]></body>
	<date>08-06-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3964">
	<title><![CDATA[The Spirit of O-Sensei]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[It's not the best shomen out there—not the fanciest or well decorated or grandest. It is "Ai Ki Do" calligraphy, signed by the artist, resting in a simple wooden frame. It's not even permanently fixed, as we share our dojo with wrestlers and sometimes out-of-town sports visitors of the private high school in which we're situated. In a given week, it would come off and on the wall many times to either accommodate our aikido training or make room for the wrestlers who also frequent the gym. But our shomen has been there for as long as I have joined the dojo, and its presence stretches back as far as when the now-yudansha were still wearing their white belts. Captured in photographs from the past, it stands slightly out-of-focus, regal and serene, like an observer in the background presiding over all our belt tests across time.

One Saturday, our morning class was booted to training outdoors as some out-of-town visitors practiced wrestling in the gym. After they left, we discovered that someone in their crew had taken our shomen with him. It was a tiny thing, but its absence was literally and figuratively an emptiness in the room. Not only did it serve as a reference point for our line-up and bow-in, it was my focal point when I first started. I tried to shake off the wrestling-room décor and the bizarre Biblical quote painted on the far wall to adapt the "empty cup" zen mentality more conducive to my aikido. I studied the characters, I memorized the strokes. I tried to visualize how the artist's brush movements and energy could mirror my own as I trained. 

We waited for a week, and our shomen didn't make its way back to the dojo, so we put up a new one in its place. This one is smaller, more modern, with the same "Ai Ki Do" characters written in a different hand. It is bordered by a square black frame, and at some angles, the glossy glass reflects a glaring amount of light.

Maybe it's the onset of hotter, muggier summer days. Maybe it's the major-overhaul construction that they've been doing to the parking lot and blacktop areas of the high school grounds. Maybe it's the broken concrete and debris stacked waist-high right across from the dojo that makes the entire place look like a garbage dump, or that awful smell of cooking tar in the cauldrons right at the entrance, blowing toxic fumes into the air as we train. But since the original shomen went missing, there has been a slowness to my training. A busy schedule has been breaking up my rock-solid, four-times-a-week participation. When I do go, I still enjoy myself, but there's a part of me that feels withdrawn. I am not as energetic and enthusiastic, and the laughter that keeps it fun does not come as easily.

I know I carry aikido in my heart, and, like my writing, it's this unique thing that I can take with me wherever I go. "That part of you will never go away," a good friend had told me once when I confided that I was afraid of losing my creative writing skills. So I tell myself that when I step onto the mat. I push past the discomfort and languidness. And I'd like to believe that even though his original physical representation is missing, the spirit of O-Sensei hovers over us all, like a regal observer standing in the background, watching.]]></body>
	<date>07-16-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3953">
	<title><![CDATA[The Ghost of Aikido Future]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[The Ghost of Aikido Present reminds me that I need to get to the dojo to take ukemi for a classmate’s 5th-kyu test. We’ve practiced for a few weeks, and I keenly feel that pressing responsibility to be there for him. Time ticks by on the clock, and yet my boyfriend’s family insists that I go clothes shopping with them. “It’ll only take a little while,” they assure me. “You’ll definitely make it there in time.” We waft past meaningless rows of fresh new clothes on hangers, and while they pick out their choices to try on, I impatiently tap my toes, waiting for them to be finished.

The Ghost of Aikido Past finds me back at my house when class is about to start. Reaching panic mode, I grab my car keys and dash for the door, only to come to the realization that the dojo is not located near my workplace but is for some reason part of the San Jose State University campus where I used to train. So used to the world of an interior wrestling gym that is my current dojo, I had forgotten the old place—proud sequoias standing tall, lush leaves blanketing the second-story dojo windows in shade; sunlight streaming through the branches, and the crisp, clean-straw smell of the Zebra mats. Only one problem with the SJSU dojo: last-minute parking on campus is usually next-to-impossible. “It’s ok,” my boyfriend reasons, “your classmate will find another uke. There’s no way you’ll get there in time.” Dismayed, I realize he’s right as I glance at the clock. By the time I manage to find parking, class would probably be over.

The Ghost of Aikido Future whispers in my ear that not only have I failed as an uke and have broken my promise to be there, I am going to miss the Black-Belt Demos put on by the yudansha. In our dojo, the different belt classes rotate every month to perform a demo of material on each of our next tests, and Black-Belt Demos are especially fun to watch because of the intensity, artfulness, and technical precision of the techniques. “No!” I think as the images whirl to abyss, “Not the demo! Please, just give me this day back. I need to do it differently. I need to re-live the day.”

And that was when I woke up a la Ebenezer, a beautiful new day to greet me with birds chirping outside my window. It was still another three days until test day at the dojo—I had the day back and then some. There’s a moral in this, aside from an unnecessary reminder of how much aikido means to me, aside from an irrational ukemi anxiety, aside from the haunting frustration of not knowing where to put my car after I arrived to my former college campus full of memories. And, yes, even aside from the petrifying nightmare of missing the chance to see a Black-Belt Demo. So often, our dreams blow the smaller things out of proportion until they seem unmanageable and out of control. Those dreams of falling as you wake with a start upon impact with the cold, hard asphalt. Those dreams of driving normally until you suddenly realize your brakes are out as your car skids downhill and gathers momentum. Those dreams of “I can’t” and “I won’t” replacing the possible reality of “I could” and “I will.” 

It’s true—training four days at the dojo, using my vacation time to train some more at an aikido camp, and coming home to late-night dinners—don’t leave much time left over for a social or family life. Sometimes, the guilt sets in; I know I should try to tear myself away from the dojo before dark, reserve my weekends for something other than keiko and weapons class for half the morning. But the Ghost of Aikido Future is hinting to me that even if I reverse my priorities, that sense of guilt doesn’t go away. It’s just a different kind of guilt, and another kind of unhappiness. And it also tells me that I need a new perspective on things. I need to stop making the aikido and the personal go through a tug-of-war for my time and attention. Like rivaling siblings, they need to learn to co-exist, to get along, and to even like it. Because they both make up the most essential and the best parts of me. Because I need to stop thinking, “Aikido [I]in[/I] my life,” but more like, “Aikido [I]is[/I] my life.”]]></body>
	<date>06-11-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3948">
	<title><![CDATA[Gasshuku]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA["We can just work on getting a good backstretch for now."

"That isn't working, so you'll have to do it another way. Push from your center, turn from your hips."

"I know—it's hard because he's big, isn't he?"

They were random bits of advice, sympathy, and encouragement from various training partners whom I'd paired up with during a three-day training camp, a "gasshuku" held annually at North Lake Tahoe. This year, I attended my first—full of fun, educational experiences, and surprises, including the fact that those kernels of advice each came from a Sensei whom I didn't know was a Sensei when I trained with them. There were so many aikidoka packed on the mat; often, we could not even fully do a sit-fall. They came from California, Texas, Arizona, Virginia, Germany—all over the world map to meet in one common area and practice a common language: that of aikido. My Sensei said we do aikido not so much with our ears but with our eyes, and though we may not all understand each other, aikido is the one language that we speak together. We bow in. We merge energies, clash wooden weapons, thank each other, bow out. We do it for a total of three days: 14 cumulative training hours at 6,000-feet elevation in an average of 30-50-degree weather marking one of the unusually cool, late-May summers near the beautiful, pristine lake. 

Being so close to nature, away from the comforts and familiarity of home, we practice that common and old language of aikido. We teach each other and encourage each other to explore new terrain. I awake to birds chirping in the morning, take in lung-fulls of the thin but clean air. I pace the pier that leads to the lake's depths, see the snow-capped mountains outlined in the glassy surface of the water. I walk by acorns on the ground with their sweet kernels blooming wide open. To me, all these things are aikido. They are emblematic of beauty, peace, harmony: pristine nature reflected in a pure and true art. I hold these images in my heart as I train, ready to break out of my shy shell and open up like a flower, tendrils reaching out and exploring what each new stranger of a training partner has to teach me, offering my new, full heart to them and wondering if they can also see what I see.

At the end of the three days, my mind spun from all the new things I had seen, practiced, and learned. My jo bore new pockmarks from impact with its bokken cousin. Every inch of my body hurt, and muscles I didn't know I had started throbbing. And yet, I felt great, flying high from adrenaline and a sense of accomplishment. We formed a "closing circle" to end the seminar, each person stating a single word they took out of the gasshuku. I heard "Friends," "Fun," "Awareness," "Connections," "Amazed." It was a weekend full of firsts, this journey to a new world of training camp that left me in awe and at a loss for words. I hope to revisit this world again and reach out exploratory tendrils to whatever else the bigger universe has yet to show me.]]></body>
	<date>06-04-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3934">
	<title><![CDATA[Playing with the Big Boys]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[A little more than halfway through third kyu, and suddenly everything is new again. Footwork, body angles, where the hands go—I am revisiting the minor details of these movements, nitpicking to get them right. In regular [I]keiko[/I], sandwiched in the middle at lineup between beginners and yudansha, I had grown accustomed to training with students near my rank or lower, our pace steady as we work through and try to understand the techniques. I become the middle child, surrounded by big brothers and little sisters, for the most part overlooked and ignored.

Sensei writes me an email: “So when are you going to attend Advanced Training?” Held on Mondays and Fridays for half an hour after regular [I]keiko[/I], or Wednesdays for the full hour, Advanced Training is something I’ve always sat on the sidelines to observe since I joined the dojo. There are those students who first join the sessions and struggle with the newness and intensity, but for the most part, it consists of yudansha going at each other at full speed and strength. Sometimes, there is advanced weapon techniques, including take-aways like [I]jo[/I]- and[I] tachi-dori[/I]. Often, it includes lessons on reversals, how to morph ikkyo omote into sankyo ura, or yonkyo into a kokyu-ho throw. Therefore, it is a joy to watch, and a pleasure for the senses to see aikido at a natural pace, practiced by partners who look like they dance through the techniques with fluidity and simplicity.

I write Sensei back: “I know I’m overdue to join the advanced sessions; I am in transition after having just moved houses; work has picked up; life got busy.” It’s all true, but I know a part of me is still hanging onto the desire to sit and watch. It’s easier to do when I wasn’t yet qualified and didn’t have the choice of joining in. But Sensei has a no-nonsense attitude and presses me about it when I next see her. So on the following Monday, I join the meager Advanced group and clap to bow in to training a second time that night. Pushed pass the comfortable safety of the sidelines, I find myself encompassed by the yudansha training circle. The entire, vast mat is our playground; with just the five of us, we are not packed tightly like a regular, busy [I]keiko[/I], watching where we throw and land, keeping our training partners falling within the borders of the mat, trying not to slide off during a pin. And yet the advanced techniques are more refined, the spirals tighter, the circular footwork confined and neat. 

For the most part of that first session, I struggle. I hear loud [I]ki-ai[/I]’s and grunts and heavy thwacks of bodies on the mat as the more advanced students are training on the opposite end. I throw my full strength into a technique, trying to move my partner. The pace gets quicker, and I use the precious moments when a new technique is being demonstrated to sit in [I]seiza [/I]and catch my breath. Even ikkyo becomes more intricate as Sensei points out the angles, showing how my sloppy movements can leave me wide open for a good punch to the ribs. She reiterates [I]ma-ai[/I], committed attacks, the importance of using my hips.

Life is changing. I just moved into the first house I ever bought, started managing the small team I’ve built at work over the past few years, and began the Advanced Training sessions. I am moving past being the middle child, starting to play with the big boys. And because these challenges are part of what makes a fulfilling life, I step off the sidelines, take my plunge into the Advanced circle, and ready myself in [I]hanmi[/I] to face the next thing that comes at me.]]></body>
	<date>05-14-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3921">
	<title><![CDATA[Masochist]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[I can't remember the last time I bought new clothes for myself, what with the repairs to the recently-purchased house diminishing my lifetime's worth of savings little by little. But out of what I told myself is a necessary investment, I bought two new gi at a local Japanese martial-arts supply store--first one because I wanted a heavyweight gi, and then another lightweight gi out of spite because the store announced a sale the week I came back to pick up my heavyweight one that finally came in from special order. There would probably be no room in the closet, and I could have used that money for something else--like food. But, really, I couldn't help it. It felt like the thing to do.

The clerk who took my order unraveled the two crisp, white cotton jackets after I took them out of their plastic bags, and I could see she was wondering, "What the heck are these?" I'm sure she's seen her fair share of strange apparel, having worked at this embroidery shop for a while. These are not your typical t-shirts to be silk-screened, or polo shirts to be embroidered with the company logo, or even baseball caps to be tagged for a sense of team unity.

"I want my first name embroidered on the left sleeves," I told her, handing over my gi tops.

When a different clerk from the embroidery shop handed me back the processed order, now with my name etched in neat black thread, I could see him eying the many bruises along my forearms. There were the bigger, most prominent bruises from taking ukemi for yonkyo practice, blackish-green to blue, their telltale hues a color code indicating where along the week I got them. There was the newborn reddish bruise at the base of the ulna bone on my left wrist from blocking yokomenuchi strikes. There were the thumb-sized bruises at the forearm base from the tight tai-no-henko grips. There was also the bruise on the inner right knee from my bad footwork, and the stubbed toe coming up from a roll. And, though he couldn't see this, I could feel the hyper-extension of my left elbow from a full day of kokyu nages.

Part of me knows this is my body's usual way of protesting a year's worth of almost-daily abuse. It's the same part of me that fears the pain--a reminder of my mortality, the paranoia that I'll undergo a permanent and irreversible injury I'm bound to regret. But most days, it's this pain that wakes me up, that reminds me how I'm alive to feel it. It's this urge that sends me flying to the dojo almost everyday after work, this instinct that guides my feet back on the mat even when I think I'm tired or lazy or that I don't want to train. I learn to take the pain and give it, to heal from it only to receive it again. Part of me thinks I am crazy and knows that the litany of bruises do not go well with the inevitable short-sleeve outfits of the coming summer. But, really, I can't help it. It feels like the thing to do.]]></body>
	<date>04-28-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3914">
	<title><![CDATA[Calligraphy]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[The shomen displays the characters of "ai-ki-do," and I study it every day I sit in seiza during line-up, waiting for Sensei to bow us in. There is the "ai," like a little house with a teepee roof, the point meeting at the very tip, like merging energy. The roof curves delicately down, flaring out at the ends with slight pressure on the brush, the different personalities of two separate energies. Under the roof are the square walls of the house: solid, contained, united.

The lower-left corner of the "ki" character explodes like a flower's pistil, contained energy topped by a right-angle bracket that trails off towards the heavens like incense smoke. First solid and then steam, the ebb and flow of "life force."

The "do" is a man on a path. I cannot see what's behind or ahead of him, only know that he travels, the road beneath his feet straight and open, extending off to the white horizon of distant unknowns in his journey to find "the way."

There is a smoothness in these strokes, a flow that I try to mirror as I train. When practicing with yudansha, I can feel their energy--persistent steadiness to draw out uke's attack, explosive strength during the climactic take-down, then measured control for the pin. As I work my way through not-yet-familiar techniques, I know where I am cutting off my own energy, during a turn or when changing hands into the correct hold, like a calligraphy brush that has been cut off from its supply of ink. Day after day, I will continue to hone these skills, practicing my strokes, making them smooth and even, releasing and controlling energy where it counts, until I can coax the art to come out of my movements.]]></body>
	<date>04-21-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3907">
	<title><![CDATA[Taming the Tiger]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[I am drained. There are no lines left in my planner to fit in another "to-do." Weekdays, work. Weeknights, work. Weekends, house work, feeling not much closer to moving in than when we bought the house in December. Between 9- or 10-hour workdays, dinners at 10:00pm, house maintenance and repairs, and falling asleep on the laptop over some random work project toted home, there is the training—wedged in between the everyday chaos like an ephemeral oasis of stress relief. For an hour of [I]keiko[/I], possibly another hour of extra practice, the world is calm. Crazy escalations don't suddenly arise; ideas, thoughts, snippets of rushed conversation do not whiz by in a whirlwind of meaningless turbulence. Sure, there is the frustration of not getting a technique right, the lack of ability to do something, the constant desire to attain grace and flow in my movements. But mostly, there is just the sound of training, and the moment. [I]When you are in the moment, the moment is all there is.[/I]

It is the Eastern zodiac Year of the Tiger. A year for taking action, embodied by a beast possessing immense energy. What can I do to tame the tiger? The need to be on the hunt, to move non-stop, to always be on guard, saps my will. I grow dry to the core, feeling like I've got nothing else to give to its incessant demands. "Aikido is like walking," Sensei once told me. As simple as that, putting one foot in front of the other, the techniques thought out and tested to make the footwork adhere to movements most natural to the human body. At first you fumble, analyze, maybe even trip over your own feet. It's hard, too much is going on, you can't keep track of it all, feel like giving up. But then you remember the basics, the fundamentals of putting one foot in front of the other. Because in aikido, and in life, sometimes that's all there is left to do.

Photo Source: http://www.1ds.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/tiger1.jpg]]></body>
	<date>04-12-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3903">
	<title><![CDATA[Waxing]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[In fifth grade, we made candles in Mr. Tenney's class, tying a white string on a yellow Number 2 pencil and taking turns to dip the string into a huge vat of simmering wax at the back of the classroom. We did this over several days, resting the pencils on metal racks so the wax could cool and later be re-dipped. I watched my maroon-colored candle slowly get thicker as the days passed. The finished product came out crooked, shaped more like an hour glass that curved in at the middle. Throughout the project, I learned to refine my candle-making skills, to dip quickly and pull the string straight back up instead of letting it sit in the boiling wax. I learned to dip lower and lower on the string as the girth of the candle grew to create a pointed tip at the top of the candle for easy lighting. And I learned that patience eventually yields a product I could be proud of, and could use.

In class, training partners I've practiced with in the past, as well as newer students, tell me, "You're getting stronger," or, "I think you're strong." My first reaction has always been to look at them with this shocked expression on my face. Growing up, I had never been strong. I had inherited my mother's small frame, her petite height, her thin bone structure. My grandpa used to observe, "You eat like a kitten--so little, small bites!" My grandma used to refer to my skinny arms as "frail chicken wings." During training, I thought the only thing I had going for me was my speed and my stubborn endurance; I never thought I had strength. So it surprises me to realize that my grip is getting stronger, my attacks more committed, my pins more convincing. That I am learning to use the power in my hips, putting my feet in the right places, trusting myself enough to not look at my partner to make sure I've got him or her in the right position.

The months pass. The dojo turns from sweltering-hot to bitingly-cold to a mild, comfortable temperature with the spring sun slanting in just right from the windows overhead. The moon waxes, growing slivers of layers until it becomes round and full, big and noticeable. Like the layers of my candle, once unrecognizable, then transforming into something useful. I am waxing, refining my techniques--building strength slowly, gaining confidence gradually, until one day I am able to see things that weren't there before.]]></body>
	<date>04-08-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3859">
	<title><![CDATA[Analogies]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[I was always bad at chemistry because I have trouble learning what I can’t visualize. The world of molecules, ions, periodic tables, and formulaic balancing was lost on me—I couldn’t see any of it, so as a result, nothing made sense. In aikido, I would grasp onto kernels of wisdom from various training partners to extract meaning from initially confusing techniques. Here are a few that I’ve filed away to refer back to:

First bokken suburi: To avoid using excessive arm strength while swinging the sword, therefore wearing yourself out faster, first “squash a bug on the tabletop with the hilt,” then cut down and extend.

Ikkyo: To keep the ikkyo lock, “keep the Freddy Kreuger fingers pointing up.”

Nikkyo Omote: The hand change is “like the axle of a train wheel staying vertical while going round,” or “like holding a cup without spilling the water.”

Nikkyo Ura: To keep the torque on uke’s wrist, keep the palm facing you, “like looking into a mirror.”

Sankyo: The hand change is “like peeling back the layers of an onion.”

Yonkyo Ura: Keep uke’s arm extended once in the yonkyo hold and “trace the radius of the circle before tracing the diameter” to bring down to the pin.

Kotegaeshi: When turning uke over for the pin, one hand holds the wrist while the other pushes the elbow to uke’s nose. Then turn the arm “like a steering wheel” instead of pulling on it.

Iriminage: The free hand that takes down uke goes up and over the chin, “like a wave breaking over a rock.”

Shihonage: During the takedown, “cut down like a sword.”

Tenchi-nage: Upper arm rises straight up from uke’s center “like a dragon to the heavens,” lower arm spirals to the earth “like a nautilus.”

Shomenuchi-to-Kaiten-nage-to-pin: Instead of grabbing uke’s arm and using force, clinch it to the body “like holding a baby.”

Katate-dori: Move the caught wrist off to the side “like a sword tip slicing outward from uke’s belly center,” or “like wiping a table.”

Kokyu Ho: When extending in kokyu, lift the hands “like drinking from a big jug of water (glug-glug-glug).” (“Glug-glug-glug” courtesy of Sensei).

Morote-dori Kokyu Dosa: First open the palms “like a flower blooming,” or “like opening a book.”]]></body>
	<date>03-05-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3856">
	<title><![CDATA[High Falls]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[It feels like sacrificing the body to save the wrist, a sudden wrench as I clasp tight to Sempai’s forearm and throw my head down to look back up at him, my leg going up and over. For a second I am airborne, none of my body touching the ground, tethered only by the hand still hanging onto him as he flips me, my earlier-caught wrist unwinding around the tight torque. The world goes topsy-turvy, whizzing by like in a forward roll, but with a stronger adrenaline rush from the momentary freedom of earth. And then gravity pulls me back to the ground, my free hand slapping the mat to soften the impact, the side of my thigh slamming against the mat’s hard surface.

“Look up and over,” Sempai coaches, “up and over.” Out of a dozen tries, I do maybe three decent ones. The other times, I don’t put in enough spring during take-off, or my body rotates wrong in mid-air, forcing me to land awkwardly and hard.

“More?” he asks, and I say, “Again,” going for the forearm, getting the feel of the pendulum motion. We first do it on the count of three, so that I can learn the rhythm and timing so essential to such acrobatics. Then he flips me on the count of one, alternating left, right, left. Forced to strive for balance, I don’t get the chance to learn it well first on one side.

Neck sore. Arms sore. Huge, welting purple bruises on the sides of my thighs from landing hard. The days following high-fall practice, I pay for it, limping along in my daily routine. Soreness has not been a foreign feeling since I re-joined aikido, but what amazes me is the various places in the body I can feel it, like I am working out a different set of muscles every time. Always learning something new. Looking up and over to the immediate goal ahead, tentatively testing out these new wings until I can truly learn to fly.]]></body>
	<date>03-04-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3854">
	<title><![CDATA[Anniversary]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Exactly one year ago on this day March 3rd, on a similarly overcast, lightly-sprinkling evening when early nightfall had robbed the last brightness from the sun, I wandered along the grounds of a school, looking for some sign of people practicing aikido. My dojo shares the wrestling gym of a private high school, also on the same land as a different private elementary school, with a small gated entry that’s easy to miss. I always kid over the irony of working as a Technical Writer for a GPS company, providing instructions for people to navigate on the road, but forever getting lost myself. “Always find your way,” our tagline boasts, but of course, with me driving to an unfamiliar locale, it usually takes a couple of tries. This hidden dojo, without any signs up to indicate the various turns people should be making once on the school parking lot, was no exception. A running joke is that finding it requires the equivalent commitment of seeking those old-men-on-the-mountain martial arts masters to commence your training.

After finally driving to the correct parking lot, facing the wrong gate, and placing several calls, I got Sensei to find me and lead me into the brightly lit dojo from the evening darkness. He was saying something when we crossed the threshold, but I had already focused my full attention on the scene before me: people in white gi jackets and black hakamas practicing together, grabbing wrists, rolling, and pinning, this artistic dance that I had not seen for a very long time. I took in the smell of the place, the foam-rubber zebra mats, the clean, soapy bodies, the scent of individuals rising with body heat into the air. The spirit of the place, the sounds of ki-ai’s and rustling clothing, rushed forward to encompass me like fog that seeped into my pores.

Sensei introduced me to the head Sempai to work with me for that first session. I re-learned tai-no-henko, trying to get it right. I did sit-falls and forward rolls. I coaxed my body to remember these long-forgotten movements, once so familiar, still sitting dormant in my muscle memory. For five years since I quit aikido, I got sidetracked in life’s journey, even a little lost. Reentering the art, I found my way again, and on that night, I came home.]]></body>
	<date>03-03-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3851">
	<title><![CDATA[Jiyu Waza]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Hanging out after class one day, my new san-kyu belt around my abdomen, I suddenly found myself in a jiyu-waza session with three guys, initiated by a Sempai. Jiyu waza would be on my next test, still a long distance away, but it felt appropriate--if not initially intimidating--to start practicing it. We went slow, the four of us spread across the ranks. The attacks were less deliberate; the takedowns and pins were drawn out and exaggerated so we could first get a feel for this freestyle way of training. 

When people are coming at you, brandishing shomenuchi or yokomenuchi or mune-tsuki, seizing your arms in morote-dori or katate-dori or ryote-dori, your body takes over. You learn to move from instinct, drawing upon the familiar techniques repeated a hundred times over in structured keiko, class training. Maybe your blends aren’t as effective, your timing a little off, you get out of the way a fraction of a second too late, and your pins are still sloppy. But jiyu-waza teaches you the concept of moving on your feet, how to go right into a technique and follow through. You learn which ones you favor, which ones you don’t use nearly enough. You learn not to freeze. And you learn the fluidity of aikido when forced to do it in constant motion, how the footwork so ingeniously works itself out as you trace spirals in the air, circles on the floor. 

This was how I imagined martial arts to be, fluid and spontaneous, a dozen different attacks met with a dozen appropriate blends and effective takedowns. It seemed like magic, how the building blocks of my almost-daily training have finally allowed me this. It was the first time I experienced this, an art and not a fight, freeing the body for creative expression, suspending the convoluted and self-restricting ways of the mind to allow the soul to soar.]]></body>
	<date>03-02-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3832">
	<title><![CDATA[3rd Kyu]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[I was worried about the usual things: forgetting to breathe, running out of steam, my throat going dry so I'd be longing for a sip of water halfway through. That I'd brain-freeze through sankyo and mix it up with yonkyo. I coached myself that nikyo from kata dori is the same as ikkyo except for the pin, but that nikyo from shomenuchi requires the hand change early on. Keep the "Freddy Krueger fingers" pointing northward when executing an ikkyo lock. Keep my nikyo-ura tight and torqued, as if "the opponent's palm is a mirror you're trying to keep turned towards you." Keep my sankyo glued to my sternum, rise and twist. And yonkyo! I have so much trouble with that one with my small hands grasping my various training partners' huge forearms that I just had to somehow pull it off and make it look halfway decent.

Funny thing after the test, because everything I worried about weren't the techniques Sensei ended up critiquing. Instead, I was told that my irimi hand needed to come over higher, reach to the ceiling, like a wave breaking over rocks. And that my lower hand during tenchi nage needed to reach to the ground, especially important for a shorty like me taking down often-taller training partners. That for my yokomen response in kihon waza, I needed to get in there and stop the attack early on.

There is a moment I remember vividly from my test, a kernel of meaning in chaos, a burst of sunshine amidst the fog of nervousness and uncertainty. When I was executing a kotegaeshi, one of the last techniques on my test, I felt a sudden shift from the normal sitfall-to-roll-over response from my test partner. A quick grab on my gi sleeve to prep, and suddenly he sailed through the air in a highfall, his body heavy beside me one moment, weightless and airborne the next. The first time I launched someone in a highfall, I was so surprised I almost let go--not very safe for the person taking ukemi. This time, it felt right and natural. Never during our practicing together for the past almost-three months did my test partner execute a highfall, and yet, without any former planning or communication between us, this spontaneity, this display of trust for my ability to take him down well, this self-confidence in drawing from my ki during a technique, warmed my heart and made me smile.

There are many things I need to learn how to do better, techniques I still have to work on. But for just a small moment in time, it wasn't a test I was taking, but the creation of a memory that exemplifies euphoria and zen. Because despite the long journey ahead, in that moment I was able to find the "ai" in aikido.]]></body>
	<date>02-14-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3799">
	<title><![CDATA[Suwari Waza]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[These techniques done on the knees require a greater level of precision, a more forceful maneuvering through every step. Sitting kneecap-to-kneecap, there is less [I]mai-ai[/I]--distance--between you and your partner. The cheats of using arms strength and vertical leverage do not apply, and balance becomes harder to take as your partner sits stable, closer to the ground.

Sensei explained that suwari waza techniques stemmed from the ancient samurai ways, where a warrior could not rise without permission from his lord. As a result, the samurai devised ways to attack while still seated in respectful [I]seiza[/I]. Sensei also said it would help us learn how to move if, from a seated position, we were suddenly attacked--the rules of blocking, blending, and moving out of the way still applied, the most important lesson being, don't freeze.

I used to be good at [I]shikko[/I], the knee-walking that my former Sensei was so keen on using as a warm-up exercise. Now, either my knees have softened after having been out of practice, or my age comes upon me in the form of stiffer joints. My kneecaps throb and my legs burn from cut-off blood flow. I close the distance between my partner and myself, moving in tight to his body, trying to make every joint lock precise and controlled. One advantage of suwari waza is that, seated, I do not feel so much that my petite 5-foot frame is being towered over by a world of giants. Down now to my level, I slide, pivot, and pin, learning how to walk and move in an entirely new way.]]></body>
	<date>01-15-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3796">
	<title><![CDATA[Happo no Giri]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[The "eight direction throw" is also a bokken suburi exercise that can be used to cleanse the negative energies of the old year and usher in the new. Instead of the usual paired practice, Sensei had us spread out and taught us how to cut eight ways, facing a different direction for each cut, using the corners of the room as a guide. Suburis are meant to be practiced alone, but as a group, the collective energy became a palpable thing. Our bokkens rose and fell together, our [I]ki-ai's[/I] were timed, and the swishing of our feet across the mat made a soft wind's song as we fed off this synergy.

A former boss once drew a helix sculpture to help me visualize synergy. He said we each go through our individual lives and different jobs, but the points where the helix met were where we communicated and what kept the structure together as a whole. So it was important not only to find the merging points, but to ride their energy.

Learning how to play a musical instrument had been one of those things that I had always meant to do but never got a chance to. "If you have a heart, "Sensei had told me, "you've got rhythm. Aikido is rhythm, and it is music."

We cut through eight directions in the dojo, like a compass star and all its sub-directions. Together, we cast our last year's sorrows, shortcomings, and negative energies out to the winds. The rain beat a staccato rhythm against the dojo walls, washing away the old year. I moved and cut with my bokken, thinking ahead to sunny days as I welcomed in the new.]]></body>
	<date>01-14-2010</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3771">
	<title><![CDATA[Come n Get It]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[After using up all my drink tickets from the company holiday party and downing over two full glasses of water in an attempt to sober up, I found myself in the parking lot of the dojo half an hour before class started for the evening. It was like Mecca, like home, like the North to my compass needle--the place where, in my slightly inebriated state, I half-consciously defaulted to. On auto-pilot, I suited up in the Ladies' room, donning my gi and hakama. It was a good thing putting those on and tying the various strings had become second-nature.

Training under the influence turned out to be a better experience than I had thought. Muscles warmed and brain fuzzy, I had the added benefit of being completely limber and relaxed, as well as being able to shut off that often-overanalytical part of me that tried too hard, or automatically censored all that I did. I was past the fear of pain during take-downs and loosened up during all the instances where I was pinned. Walking by to observe, Sensei questioned my training partner whether he was "giving me enough juice." Probably he was giving me plenty, but I was more relaxed than normal.

Something about sweating or aerobic workouts got me to sober up really quickly--more so than times in the past when I had that much to drink. By the time I made it home, I felt completely fine. But a few hours later, I found a reason why attempting to train while drunk was a bad idea: I couldn't find my Ziploc bag that I stored my jewelry in. Two rings, a pair of hoop earrings, and a watch, nowhere to be found in either my gym bag or purse. It finally occured to me that I must have left it on the ledge of the sink in the Ladies' room after changing. Most of the contents in that Ziploc bag weren't expensive, but all of it had been gifts, and so they bore sentimental value. Except for the watch, my boyfriend had given me all those pieces of jewelry. We had walked along the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk when he bought me the heart-shaped ring, and for Valentine's he had bought me the other ring with two linking hearts. And those hoop earrings, my favorite because they didn't have studs and I could snap them on and off easily before and after class--they had been from him, too.

Remorseful and panic-stricken, I made a round of calls, asking Sensei to look for the bag on the ledge of the sink before the early-morning training session began the next day. The dojo shared the grounds with a high school, and I didn't know who else besides dojo members accessed those restrooms. I fought through a nerve-wrecking night, and in the morning when I called him, Sensei said, "Yes, I have your stuff. If you come to training tonight, you can get it back." Seriously, I could hug the man.

Coming to actually train was of course not a requirement, but as evening rolled around, I found myself donning the familiar garbs again. I might as well since I'd be driving to the dojo, I reasoned, and besides, I felt like I should do pennance for my carelessness. Sensei was dangling that jewelry bag at Due North, at Mecca, at home. "If you want it," I could practically hear him saying, "come n get it."
[I]
Yes, Sensei[/I], I thought.[I] I am coming. I'll be right there.[/I]]]></body>
	<date>12-19-2009</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3748">
	<title><![CDATA[Why I Know I Have Aikido Issues]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[1.  I plan my schedule around keiko instead of the other way around.
   2. Martial arts books have replaced fine literature on my shelf.
   3. When house-hunting, I first check the vertical clearance of the ceiling to see if it'll accommodate my jo katas.
   4. I'm not heartbroken over not yet being able to afford furniture because, hey, more room for suburi practice.
   5. I assess square footage of individual rooms by how many tatami mats will fit.
   6. Mop handles and hiking sticks make me think of jo's.
   7. I pass the lumber section of Home Depot and wonder which wood would make a good bokken.
   8. Going gi shopping fuels me with endorphins that most other women get when stepping into Macy's.
   9. I do laundry based on when I run out of fresh gi's.
  10. I consider purchasing future car models based on whether the trunk will sufficiently accommodate my weapons bag.
  11. I'm actually up at 8:00AM on a Saturday morning so that I can commute to weapons class.
  12. I've avoided certain fast food chains for years, and suddenly I'm burning enough calories so that those McDonald's golden fries are looking very tempting.
  13. I suck at sewing but would spend an entire morning hemming/altering/patching up my gi.
  14. I've never folded any article of clothing with such meticulous care as I do my hakama, and I do this almost on a daily basis.
  15. People look at me funny because I carry a litany of bruises on my forearms.
  16. I've sprained and twisted muscles and still have the desire to claw my way back on the mat.
  17. I've considered using a tenchi-nage-like blend to squeeze through automatic doors before they close.
  18. Trying highfalls make me paranoid that I'll break my neck and become a paraplegic, but I still want to practice and master them.
  19. My grip strength and wrists have gotten noticeably stronger.
  20. I subconsciously get into hanmi stance, like when standing or mopping the floor.]]></body>
	<date>12-07-2009</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3693">
	<title><![CDATA[Martial Arts Daughter]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[It is especially unladylike, my mother believed, for girls to learn martial arts and "wave their hands and feet about." I've always had an interest in martial arts, and I guess growing up watching Hong Kong kung-fu sagas with bad-ass, sword-wielding heroines had a little something to do with fueling my passion. When I expressed my desire to my traditional mother--who still manages to put a three-course meal on the table every night for family dinners--she didn't allow me to get into martial arts. In my early teens, I'd watch my two older male cousins go off to their paid karate lessons and pine away at their freedom.

When I got to college, I wormed my way into two rather unconventional things: 1.) Being an English major, and 2.) Being an aikidoka. My parents had high hopes that I'd select a more lucrative profession . . . they had given me choices of the more acceptable study paths: to become an engineer, doctor, lawyer, or, if I managed to fail at all of the above--at least a real-estate agent. And if I were so incompetent as to give up all that, I had the choice of marrying either an engineer, doctor, lawyer, or--if I must--a real-estate agent. After all, my older female cousins all went into or married men in those fields. A husband like that would protect me financially, keep me comfortable. My parents had no idea what I'd do with an English degree besides teach, and I ended up not even getting that right.

Getting into aikido was an equally amusing experience. I showed my mother my Schedule of Classes booklet, pointing out the necessary electives for graduation credit. "Mom, I need these P.E. units to graduate, and this aikido class is the only thing that'll fit into my tight schedule--you do want me to get a college degree, don't you?" I thought I'd try out different martial arts one by one until I found what I liked and wanted to stick with, but when I was handed my gi and went through the first few aikido classes, I was in love.

When my youngest brother developed an interest in taking up martial arts and I showed him a few techniques I learned, my mother shook her head at my dad and said, "That's it, we have three boys instead of two sons and a daughter." She gave me the stink-eye when I accidentally broke things: an automatic umbrella, a French Press's glass carafe, a few of her porcelain rice bowls that I swear had chips leading to a weak fissure in the first place; she'd half-jokingly blame my "martial arts hands."

I took the offered aikido classes on repeat for two-and-a-half years, long after I had fulfilled all my necessary P.E. credits. I put my training on hold for a while as life took me on its often unpredictable path. And I've just picked it up again this year, restarting the journey.

My mother still doesn't get why I stay out in the evenings past family dinnertime to wrestle with sweaty people and wave around wooden sticks and swords, but she's more tolerant now. She's tolerant, but she doesn't completely understand. Just the other week, glancing at me taking off my blue belt after class, she asked, "So when are you going to be done with aikido?" I looked at her like she was speaking Latin. She didn't ask as if she was hinting that I should stop--she was genuinely curious as to how much longer it can go on (like an exercise class that ends every semester, or a college degree that you'd get after x amount of years). I don't know how to explain to her these things I feel inside, about this other culture that I grew up in, and which she still feels alienated from. That while I do eventually want to get married, I also covet the ability to protect myself, both physically and financially. That if I have a daughter, I'd want to raise her to be strong, too, in mind and spirit, as well as body. That the idea of stopping my training again is like giving up the ability to dream, the desire to fly. And that even at Black Belt, when down the road I am ready to test for my Shodan, my "first step"--it does not end but would have just barely begun.]]></body>
	<date>10-29-2009</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3691">
	<title><![CDATA[Dancing]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Arms up and out in an effort to maintain the extension in my uke's body, my eyes followed Sensei's foot as he planted it firmly in a spot off to my left and in front of me. "Now, put your right foot where mine is," he said, showing me the footwork of shihonage. It seemed a long way to step, but I discovered that it was necessary to continue extending my partner and effectively drop him. "In aikido, we look for openings," Sensei said, showing me the opening I was supposed to create for myself under uke's arms before stepping through. Even though I still struggle with the techniques, these important details have become easier for me to spot; I am becoming more aware of footwork, openings, and connections, of extensions and of torquing for tightness, when to hang on and when to let go.

I was struggling with the footwork of how to "chase" my opponent in kickboxing. It seemed counter-intuitive after my aikido training to slide back and off to the side with my back foot, maintaining the tight-circle connection, when I've been training myself to step with the forward side. In the only dance that he'd do with me, my boyfriend (who's also my training coach) came up behind me, glued his limbs and body to mine, and guided me into the correct steps. [I]Slide-turn-jab; slide-turn-jab[/I]--we went in circles around the living room, and I tried to commit the movements of this still-unfamiliar art into my muscle memory.

There are those popular shows on television now: "Dancing With the Stars" and "So You Think You Can Dance" to name a couple. Tons of movies: [I]Take the Lead[/I] and [I]Save the Last Dance[/I], stemming from an older generation of [I]Footloose [/I]and [I]Dirty Dancing[/I]. All good entertainment, and yes, something I wish I could do. But I dance, too--in a different way. Putting one foot in front of the other, memorizing where each goes for various techniques, I study the movements of my body to a different beat, in tune with the music of my heart.]]></body>
	<date>10-28-2009</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3688">
	<title><![CDATA[Hiring]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[During line-up to conclude class, Sensei brought up something I asked him a while back. Referring to one of his favorite phrases, he looked at me with a smile and inquired, "Are you practicing the aikido that cannot be seen?"

Caught in a deer-in-headlights moment, I answered with a timid, "Umm--maybe...?"

"Still not sure, huh?" he asked, laughing.

"Still figuring it out, Sensei," I replied.

He never directly told me what he meant by "the aikido that cannot be seen," and while I spent at least a good half hour and two blog entries musing about its meaning, I couldn't give him a straight answer, guarded by the voice in the back of my head that nags, "What if I'm wrong?"

One thing I'm pretty sure it alludes to is how applicable aikido is in my everyday life. For the past three months, I've been trying to hire an additional person for my meager department of two. It's been quite a experience of seemingly endless resume-browsing, phone-screening, and on-site interviewing (x2); trying to achieve committee consensus on one candidate from a stock pile of nearly 200 resumes has been no easy feat. This is especially a challenge as I'm new to the hiring/managerial responsibilities, hoping to grow in my role.

It's true aikido teaches you combat skills, but it also teaches you the ways to conflict resolution. Today, after a second interview with a candidate I'm hoping to hire, I faced my boss as he presented me with his opinions of the candidate's strengths and weaknesses. I am tired of trying to hire, ready to start training a new team member. I assessed the openings in my boss's arguments, decided to blend with him, riding that common wave created by our merging energies, and to go for the approach that took the least amount of effort to yield the desired results. I tried not to let my insecurities show despite being new at this, having less hiring experience than he did. I made my point and stood firm; I didn't let my will power waver. And in the end, he yielded, perhaps detecting in my iron resolve my ability to handle the situation and embrace my responsibilities. Even if it turns out I may be wrong about certain things, I'd have the passion and desire to correct my mistakes in the long run. We all start somewhere, and by seeking perfection to begin with, we may lose the chance at a good candidate who projects enthusiasm and is eager to learn. I am ready to face him, ready to say, "Onegai-shimasu," let the training begin.

"Are you practicing the aikido that cannot be seen?" The next time Sensei asks, I will have a concrete example to look back upon. Then I can answer, "Hai, Sensei. At least I try to, every single day."]]></body>
	<date>10-27-2009</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3687">
	<title><![CDATA[San Shou]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[The way of the "free hand" is full-contact and consists of kicks, punches, grappling, and throws. Fast, furious, and direct, this form of kickboxing aims to take down an opponent in the least amount of time. Compared to aikido, these arts seem like polar opposites. Flow and harmony are replaced with quick-paced, in-your-face action; soft rolls and sit falls are replaced with the jarring impact of a direct take-down; the respectful ma-ai (distance) between training partners gets closed up, the space between two bodies nonexistent during instances of kneeing and ground-grappling. The terminology of basic martial concepts change--instead of "training partner," the person facing you is your "opponent"; where one art stresses the absence of competition, the other is directly competitive.

I kick-box not to nullify my aikido training, but to enhance it. I get to know the feeling of five long, long minutes of pushing forward with punches, kicks, and blocks; not backing down, closing up the distance, not forgetting to shield my face with my 12-ounce gloves that become heavier and heavier as the minutes drag on to 10, 15, 20. Aikido techniques open up like a blooming flower, embracing the attack, redirecting its force to work to your advantage. Kickboxing tightens up like a turtle in its shell, staying focused, hard, protected. My defensive and centered hanmi stance becomes a squared offensive stance, staying alive on the balls of my feet, inching up to strike the kicking pads.

Jab-jab, cross, hook, knee-knee, roundhouse. The pattern becomes a rhythm in my head, orchestrating the movements of my body as I push forward, exhaling in quick puffs with each strike. The impact on my gloved hands and bare shins jolts my body to the the core, seems to send my brain smashing against its protective skull. Endurance. Focus. Precision. If I let my guard down, allow gravity to lull my aching arms a fraction below where they should be near my face, I get a hook with the kicking pads to the side of my head. "Don't be lazy; no cheating." Sweat pours down my back, running into my eyes, and with my hands gloved, I can't wipe it off. I blink away the sting and keep going, me against the clock for the ultimate test of my will power.

Afterwards, I slip out of my gloves and catch my breath. My thumbs are shaking, and I couldn't even grip the cap of the water bottle well enough to twist it open. My shins are bruised, my knees are red, and my triceps come alive, protesting this rude awakening from their comfortable dormancy. Is it so different, this wonderful feeling of accomplishment after a hard training session? Is it so foreign, that trickle of ki burning from my center, fueling my aching body with a divine will to push on? I am both defensive and offensive, soft and hard, tranquil and turbulent, water and steel.]]></body>
	<date>10-26-2009</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3686">
	<title><![CDATA[Finding Ki]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Ki. Chi. Life force. And elusive concept, it is sometimes given the analogy, "what makes up the red parts in your palm." In martial arts practice, we learn to harness this energy in our movements, direct it outwards to back our attacks and throws with vitality. It is the essence of us, the iron core of our spirits, the well from which we draw strength when our endurance runs low, feeding us with the will to continue when we feel we've got nothing left to give. It makes up our "ki-ai's,"--the battle cries that regulate our breathing and are the extensions of our strikes. Martial arts make us aware of our ki and how we can use it; we learn to hone it like an essential tool, shaping it as, over the years, we also whet our spirit and character.

The first time I saw weapons being demonstrated at my dojo, I was blown away. The class was sitting in line-up, and Sensei had out his bokken (wooden sword). One minute he stood in front of the class with a senior student, lecturing on how the paired practice should be performed. "Like this," he said, and then he launched into quick, precise moves with loud ki-ai's to enhance his thrusts. Clack-clack! The impact of wood on wood rang through the air, harmonizing with Sensei's battle cries like percussion to a thunder song, and in three moves, the student helping to demo was against the wall, forced backwards by the onslaught, barely timing it correctly to parry the blows. My jaw dropped open; riveted to my seat, I forgot to breathe. I had never worked with a weapon before. My Sensei is slight in frame, not much taller than me, and almost appears wizened with age. But the way he handled that wooden sword, with dexterity and utmost precision in his attacks, made me crave that skill and long to learn.

This morning, almost seven months later, I face my training partner with my jo. Concentrated, aware of his slightest movements of attack before I initiate my own defense, I seek to find harmony in our paired practice. I am more aware of lines--the center line connecting us, how we step off to the left to parry, meet down at the center again to strike, and step off to the right to set up another attack. I learn how foot and hip movements are used to exert maximum force with minimum effort. And our wooden weapons continue to sing their song through the sun-lit dojo.

Going home this morning, I begin to feel it--the callouses starting to form on my soft hands where I was gripping the weapon tight to put power behind each thrust. I bring my palms in front of my face and see the redness pool in a concentrated spot underneath the white of my flesh. Warmed from practice, strengthened by executing and taking wrist grabs, there is now more red than white swirling on the surface of my hands. I take the satisfaction of this feeling home with me, seeking still to find my ki, but knowing that I am that much closer.]]></body>
	<date>10-25-2009</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3684">
	<title><![CDATA[4th Kyu]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[It used to be fun, because it used to be short. A few techniques demonstrated in both front and rear styles, some ukemi skills to show I can take a fall or go into a roll, some memorized vocabulary to make sure I knew the names of certain attacks. But on my 4th-kyu test, after which I would lose the white from my belt, I felt for the first time a sense of apprehension. It's not the usual anxiety, the normal butterflies-in-stomach release of adrenaline before a test; it's the fear of miscalculation, the paranoia that I'd forget how to perform a certain technique, the doubt in my own endurance.

After the first few techniques had been called out for me to demonstrate, I moved on to the third. Kihon waza: step in to stop the technique before the partner's strike is completed. Ki no nagare: "flowing technique" where the partner's striking momentum is purposefully drawn out, to be used to your advantage as you turn it into your own attack. Ki no nagare has always come more natural to me, and my body defaults to it instinctively. So when Sensei called kihon waza, I took a second to recall the hand and foot movements. When I stepped right into what I was supposed to do, I was so thrilled over getting it right that I forgot what I needed to do for the meat of the technique: shihonage. I froze, my mind coated with panic. I was hyperventilating, not breathing enough, not supplying my desperate body with much-needed oxygen. And then my brain just shut itself off, and my body took over to do the rest. There were a few rough spots during the rest of my test, but nothing quite as dramatic as that. And when it was over and the other students had their chance at their own tests, I found a new blue belt waiting for me, along with my Senseis' feedback for how I could improve my form for the future.

I felt like I had gotten rid of all the white on my belt, but not in my mind. My aikido is far from flawless. I still need to work on taking balance. Not compromising my own posture for an opponent who is taller or bigger or stronger than me. Step in evenly toe-to-toe, and not move so far back. Use my hips to move with power and not rely on my arm strength. Ki'ai and breathe. Relax and loosen up. Kept it steady, keep it strong.

Now I am approaching the more arduous part of the path, the rougher terrain in the road. There's more to learn, more to memorize. There will be more rigid criticism on the mistakes in my techniques, more attention to detail. There are the doubts, and anxiety, and nervousness, and fear. And then there is learning how to conquer these things, like everything else in life worth reaching for.]]></body>
	<date>10-25-2009</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3685">
	<title><![CDATA[&quot;The Aikido That Cannot Be Seen&quot;]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[One of my Senseis has a favorite saying that he sometimes uses to conclude class: "Practice the aikido that cannot be seen." After the first few times I heard him say it, I pondered over the meaning, wondering what philosophical lesson I was supposed to get from it. There is a spiritual aspect to aikido, deeply rooted in religious lessons and aphorisms from where the founder, Morehei Ueshiba, gleaned inspiration for the martial art.

One night, I approached my Sensei and asked what he meant by "the aikido that cannot be seen." Instead of giving me a straight answer, he thought for a moment, and then he launched into a story about being in a restaurant when the waitress set down a cup of cream that started hydroplaning across the table's surface, only to be caught by my Sensei before it skidded off the edge. The waitress, perplexed at the speed of which everything happened, asked my Sensei how he caught it so fast, to which he responded, "I was waiting for it."

Sensei saw my still-quizzical expression, so he told another story of when he took the longer path to where he needed to go by walking around some band members practicing instead of cutting directly through them, "to avoid conflict," he added. I was sitting there, thinking about how I had accidentally punched a bee smack across the body that afternoon at lunch because it had caught me by surprise, suddenly buzzing loudly near my ear before I had a chance to react otherwise. I wondered if that counted as "the aikido that cannot be seen."

Driving home after practice, I thought more about Sensei's saying. Perhaps I had trouble understanding it, as he had trouble articulating it, because it has more than one meaning and was intended to teach multiple lessons. Aikido is not waiting for things to happen, but anticipating what is to come and blending with it, flowing with it. Aikido is conflict-resolution before a conflict even takes place. Aikido takes understanding, produces harmony, makes you one with your surroundings. Aikido is a privilege to practice. It is a traditional art that embraces the ancient ways, a code of ethics, a warrior's creed; it nestles in between the physical contact between training partners and everyone's individual interpretations of its spiritual lessons. At once constant and ethereal, it cannot be seen, but makes you a believer based on how it can make you feel.]]></body>
	<date>10-25-2009</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3679">
	<title><![CDATA[Gi, Revisited]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Few women may remember the outfit they were wearing when they first met their spouse or significant other. I can clearly recall mine. Almost 10 years ago, I was in all white--wearing my martial arts gi with my white belt when my current boyfriend grabbed my wrist for the first time and sealed our fate as a couple with a potent kotegaeshi.

Tonight, changing out of that very same gi after my current aikido class, I noticed the beginnings of a threadbare rip across the knee area of one of the pant legs. Seems like it's time to retire this one and see about the purchase of a new gi; after all, few outfits can boast an almost 10-year residency in anyone's closet. But throwing out this gi does not come with some regrets. Though Japanese martial arts stress a kempt uniform to foster a "clean" training spirit, I've also heard stories about how students go to great lengths to patch up worn out, torn, or threadbare spots on their training uniforms. Even high-ranking practitioners and instructors sometimes wear these apparel battle scars as a symbol of pride for the hard work and training that they've been through. A black belt frayed at the edges or turning back to white from years and years of use is representative of the painstaking, yet exhilarating and worthy journey one has taken to achieve a level of martial aptitude. Like any important path in life, it speaks of the symbolic arc of who were were before we transform into who we become--through discipline, dedication, sweat, and sometimes tears and blood.

Yes, it's time to throw out my very first gi that has shaped one of the biggest and best parts of me: my aikido training, which has helped me both find and understand love, which has cultured my spirit, refined my body, and brought an indescribable sense of peace to my soul. Over the years and through my two dojos, it has molded itself to my training style: frayed at high-impact areas, crinkled from grappling and kneeling, creased at fold seams. It reflects new lessons and recent changes: my name now sits on the left sleeve in black iron-on letters; the sleeves are folded back to accommodate wrist grabs; and the pant legs have recently been rolled up to be hidden under my new hakama.

In our consumer society, materialism is so much a part of our culture that we often lose track of the meaning behind things like a simple article of clothing. This gi helped me find myself in an art that I've come to love. It waited patiently for years in the dark closet when I lost myself to a new world of career choices and corporate rules. And now it's time to let it go...but not before it helped me rediscover an essential part of myself through aikido again.]]></body>
	<date>10-23-2009</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3678">
	<title><![CDATA[Ura Waza]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Most aikido techniques are performed either to the front of the training partner--"omote"--or to the rear--"ura." Both aim to break balance for the take-down and pin. Ura has always felt more powerful to me as a technique, more concentrated on the circular and spiral movements characteristic of aikido. When it's being done to me, there is a brief feeling of being off-balance, followed quickly by an out-of-control spinning where my training partner is the center axis and I am the spoke of the wheel.

Like what William Butler Yeats calls the "widening gyre" in his poem "The Second Coming," the centripetal speed begins at a concentrated point of power and spirals outward, gaining momentum as it becomes a bigger and bigger circle. There is a moment when my mind is gripped by the fear of the body losing control, and I have to make a conscious effort to breathe and allow myself to go with the flow. Arms akimbo, body flailing, and legs losing traction, I fly like I've just lost grip on the merry-go-around on the playground during it's maximum speed, and the room flashes by in a blur, and then I am on the ground, often bruised on my way down as my flesh impacts the mat after gathering velocity.

Ura waza is much like life when it spirals out of control; you can feel it coming, can even brace for it, but in the end, you will be swept along with the tide, watching things spinning from their logical, stationary position until they pass by in a blur, until they no longer make sense. This is what happens when "the centre cannot hold," when "things fall apart."]]></body>
	<date>10-23-2009</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3677">
	<title><![CDATA[Yonkyo]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[When that dull, throbbing pain took hold like someone had taken a sledgehammer to my arm, I forgot to breathe. The sensation shot up to my brain like electricity and shut it down; I couldn't think, didn't even register that my eyes were squeezed shut and my jaws were clenched closed until I heard, "Relax. It'll hurt less if you don't stiffen up." Then my training partner let go of his grip, and everything came rushing back to my senses: the sound of my own blood pumping in my ears, the whoosh of air flooding into my lungs, the smell of the dojo, the sight of dust streaks on the training mat on which I lay.

Sensei said, "There is a nerve in the arm, about a palm's width up from the wrist and near the outer bone." This is yonkyo, and finding the nerve can be tricky because its placement on individuals can vary depending on the size of their palm. Once it's found, though, applying pressure to it in the right way can make for a potent submission take-down. When it's yonkyo day at the dojo, I cringe; and I'm fairly certain that I'm not entirely alone in that reaction. I hadn't realized that a simple nerve in the arm can paralyze the entire body. Like a strike to a pressure point, it could cut off the breath and cloud the vision. It leaves bruises 3 inches across on the length of the forearm. It gives people the paranoia that they've gotten permanent nerve damage. It instills power to give, is painful to receive--and one day I'll get it right and execute a perfect yonkyo on every try.]]></body>
	<date>10-23-2009</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3675">
	<title><![CDATA[Obi]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[On the week after my aikido belt changed from yellow-stripe to blue stripe, I tried on my new one before class started. Freshly freed from the flimsy paper bands that tied it, the belt uncoiled, stiff as cardboard, still bearing the crease marks of its packaging.

My two Sensei came over to comment. "Now you can recycle the old belt," one said to the other.

A look of protest crossed my face before my other Sensei responded, "They usually want to keep them, though. Daisy, you want to keep your old belt?"

"Yes, Sensei," I responded enthusiastically. "Please."

My first Sensei smiled good-naturedly as she walked away. "I don't know why you'd want them to pile up for."

I wanted to say, "But, Sensei--it means something to me." Where I used to practice aikido at SJSU, we didn't rank. I took those fitness classes over and over, long after my Human Performance units had been fulfilled, impossibly drawn to the art. My belt stayed white for the two-and-a-half years I first trained in aikido.

There are mixed feelings about rank in the aikido community. Some feel it goes against the non-competitive nature of this martial art; others think it's a good way to measure self progress, or for instructors and senior students to gauge skill level when working with a new student. I came in neutral to these arguments, simply accepting that different dojos do things in different ways, and as long as I still had fun and fueled my passion to train, it really didn't matter.

As the other students filtered in, putting on their gi and adjusting their garments in preparation for training, I wrapped the stiff new blue-striped belt around my abdomen, looping it neatly around itself and tying the double knot from years of muscle memory. I looked back on the white days. I looked forward to the days of solid blue and brown and black. I thought about how my basic movements had refined over time, wondered about the techniques and kata I have yet to learn. Lining up in seiza, the obi tight around my center to push my posture straight, I thought about my newly-earned color, and how I'd train going forward to deserve it.]]></body>
	<date>10-22-2009</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3674">
	<title><![CDATA[Back to Basics]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[Once upon a time, I used to be able to do the basic-blend technique of tai-no-henko, a normal warm-up exercise often performed in pairs at the beginning of class to get students into the mindset of aikido's movements. Palm face-up and held near the abdomen; hand pivots on an invisible vertical line; forward foot slides in deep; body blends, and both arms end palm-up. Now, I couldn't control the shape of my hands, or slide deep enough, or take my opponent's balance, or end up quite right.

Re-entering aikido is like going through physical rehab after a major accident has robbed you of the ability to walk. You remember how it's done, and yet it is with the greatest of efforts that, with support and guidance, you begin the painstaking journey of learning how to put one foot in front of the other again. It's painful to see fluidity all around you but not yet attain it. Hard to relax when you're so preoccupied with finding the flow. But I do hope to find my aikido again, dormant within me, rusty from years of neglect. Because when I watch the smoothly-flowing aikido of two senior-rank students during practice, it is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life--it is an execution of art, like perfect penmanship across lined white paper, or the foam at the peak of the ocean waves before they break and rush in to meet the sand. It fills me with a sense of inner tranquility even as I seek to unravel the secret behind such perfection, and a feeling wells up from deep within me, akin to love.

This journey strewn with obstacles comes with its little, occasional rewards: hearing the click-clack sound of wooden jo's clanging against each other during weapons practice, executing a perfect pin, and getting that odd sensation of the 20 hot bodies in the room just disappearing so that all that remains is your training partner, you, and the moment. Once in a while, a training partner attuned to my body's movements, or an instructor who was standing by observing, would say to me, "You've done aikido before, haven't you?"

"Yes," I answer them. "Once upon a time."]]></body>
	<date>10-22-2009</date>
</blogEntry>

<blogEntry id="3673">
	<title><![CDATA[Dogi]]></title>
	<body><![CDATA[For five years, it sat in a dark corner of my closet. When I pulled it out of the bag, it still looked the same--crisp and white, stiff at the seams, crinkled in areas bent over and over from years of use. When I tried it on, it still felt the same--cottony cool and loose for easy mobility, with a belt tied tight around the abdomen to remind me of correct posture, good etiquette, and decorum.

In reality, my body and its limitations become my inhibitions, but in my dreams, I remember how to fly. I am weightless as air, malleable as water, flowing easily over wrist locks and joint holds, taking tumbles and executing standing rolls with barely a skip in my heartbeat. My breathing is rhythmic and not labored as I train--moving in perfect circles, landing soft, lost in the rhythms of my own body, and the techniques come to me as second-nature as the speakings of my own soul.

Now I start at a different school and don a new gi. My belt is white, my mind an empty cup as it seeks to learn again, from the start. Everything in these initial stages feels awkward, awkward; my body struggles to remember how to move, limbs akimbo as they seek the right positions to start off, to end up.

I know the kanji is different, but I can't help interpreting the first character of "aikido" to mean "love." Five years put on hold as I worked toward my graduate degree and gauged the terrain of the corporate world. Now I go back to one of my first loves. Draping the new uniform over my shoulders, tying the vest in place left-over-right, cinching the belt so the knot sits right above my "hara" center energy, I start to remember why this martial art is built upon the foundation of love. The first time I wore my uniform again, it was as intimate as if I was taking off the layers, not putting them on; I got butterflies in my stomach for all the potential that is to be, and that is love. Meeting a stranger and working that closely with his or her body, taking care to learn in the process an not inflict hurt--that is love. Studying how the body moves and achieving confluence and harmony so that my mind feels linked with all the essence of the universe, that is love. Even the trail of bruises along my forearms and knees from take-downs and blocking shomenuchi strikes, which remind me about enjoying life as a mortal, and that everything worth having comes with a least a little pain . . . that is love.

In real life, I struggle against gravity and resistant forces, but in my dreams, I float on air. My passion fueled once again, I will work to re-learn buoyancy, weightlessness, and flow. This is my "ai," and I will "hajime"--begin again.]]></body>
	<date>10-22-2009</date>
</blogEntry>


</blogEntries>