lbb

What Mary and Basia said, basically.

1. Keep showing up. Not every class will be fun and exciting, but that's how it is with everything worthwhile. To get the value out of it, you need to keep showing up.

2. Work hard, and don't try to get by on your natural gifts, whatever they may be. This is something I wish someone had explained to me at your age (but, knowing me, I might not have listened). If you've got natural talents of some kind, you've probably been able to do well without much effort -- at least, so far. Within the next few years, that will change. As a bright kid, I had no trouble being a standout student at a mediocre high school - it took my sophomore year at a competitive college (and organic chemistry) to teach me that no matter how gifted you may be, eventually you just have to buckle down and work in order to amount to anything. It's a character thing: the sooner you develop into the kind of person who accepts the work that success requires, the better off you'll be.

3. Enjoy the process -- not necessarily every moment (see #1), but don't do aikido (or anything) solely for some down-the-road goal. Ask yourself how you feel about what you're doing right now; ask yourself if you can keep doing it for a lifetime. I've known people who got to their third year of medical school before they were forced to admit to themselves that the answer to that question was "no". In martial arts, people sometimes focus on getting a black belt, but don't notice that the training (the process) the day after you get your black belt is no different than it was before. If you don't enjoy the process, if you're gritting your teeth and toughing through it to get to some future goal, that's a good reason not to do it.