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Old 06-22-2012, 01:43 AM   #1
Simon Lai
Dojo: Yoshinkan
Location: I am a Village People
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 11
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Should I Re-Start Aikido?

Greetings,

I am Simon Lai.

Been lurking at this website for a while. I signed up for to ask a specific question:

And it is definitely not does aikido work type of question.

Here goes:

I have been active in the martial art for a long long time, starting with krotty during childhood days to judo (in Uni-days) to Aikido. Aikido is something I stucked with the longest, reaching 1st Dan. The school of Aikido I practice is Yoshinkan. It is also something that is closest to Budo that I felt and I truly enjoyed it.

I stopped aikido 10 years ago. During this 10 years of inactiveness, I started a family, started a business, failed my business, became an employee all over, took weekend studies to earn a professional accountancy qualification (CIMA - rather proud of it actually).

Today I am a freelance business consultant and work time is more flexible, I wish to regain some work-life balance. I actually longed to be back in the mat again, dishing out pain and punishment to all and sundry.

Problem is, across this period of time, I also gain one stone of weight, huge pot belly, turkey neck and lost my fitness. I basically can't even do a couple of break-falls without panting and the thought of doing a full kote-gaeshi ukemi or a hip throw ukemi is nightmare to me now.

So my question is, should I or shouldn't I? Or should I just let go of my little mid-life fantasy and stick with golf like most of my business associates? I am 40 this year.

Simon
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