Now I do believe Ann Marie was right in seeing you directly in what I was saying: you are one of those folks that wants to be a hobbyist but doesn't want folks to acknowledge it out loud. Like the folks I was talking about, you opt to use the term to excuse you when it suits you - for all that you aren't - but want to drop it when all that are not is exposing the little you are (in terms of Aikido and being an aikidoka) - because you'd rather be more (e.g. you'd rather be training than not training). Of the three of us then, it is only me that is truly fine with folks doing Aikido at a hobby level.

If you train only when you want to (which you said), stopping when you don't (which you also said), even if you want to coin the oxymoron "serious hobby," you still are training superficially. Saying "just kidding" now won't make you serious about Aikido - right? That should be obvious. The hard thing is that it won't make you fine with your own superficiality (i.e. the downside of it: losing interest when you would rather not) when it comes to the training. Hang in there - no need to apologize for anything, but thank you just the same - very kind of you. All is good.