Let me begin by congratulating Greg and his wife on their 13 year anniversary. Julie and I will celebrate our 1 year anniversary tomorrow
Julie and I met while training in Aikido, five years ago. I'm pretty certain that Julie was not attracted to me because of my incredible Aikido skill and the respect I commanded during class
She was a Karate student at the time and part of their promotional requirements involved learning a certain number of Aikido techniques, so she began taking Aikido. I was an assistant instructor at the time. We tried to keep our relationship quiet, basically because we weren't sure how our Sensei would view the relationship. Well, after about 5 months everyone knew and thought it was great
Five years later, we continue to train together. She has a wicked Shihonage, which happens to be the first technique she ever performed on me.
Here's my advice. If the relationship goes sour, it
will affect everyone in the dojo. It's always disheartening when someone leaves the dojo because of a soured relationship.