giriasis

My expectations really changed after I started practicing aikido. I read up on it for about 6 months before I started aikido. I read all the books on ki and the more metaphysical side of aikido. You see, at that time, I was that kind of person. I only experienced things by reading about them. A consequence of so much of my life being focused on my educations. I was very "intellectual" about aikido before I started it.

But when I began training my perception of what aikido was about changed. It became very physcial and not the spiritual and emotional side of it that I expected or even sought. All the spiritual sounding passages in books became very pratical. Ki, to me, was very physical -- physics and physiology. I was faced with literal physical challenges such as learning to roll, to breakfall, and learning to deal with my weight and eventually being motivated to lose that weight so I could train, physcially train much more intensely.

Now, after 6 years of aikido, I'm beginning to face mental and emotional challenges that have a tendency to well up and confront me while I'm on the mat. Personal issues that I have never dealt with before.

I guess, what I'm trying to say is don't rely on your current expectations too much. They are great to get you interested in aikido and to get you started. But, if they change or what you start to get out of aikido is different don't be disappointed, but rather embarce it. Just think of it as traversing that part of the path that you need to follow.