Jeff Rice

I wanted to make a post and fill you folks in on how things are going, since you were so encouraging when I was trying to decide whether or not to start. I'm nearly the end of my third week at Aikido Westchester and I'm really loving it. I have to say that if this dojo is typical of aikido dojos worldwide, then aikido must have a corner on the supply of nice people in the world.

I'm doing pretty well for a complete beginner, I think, and although it often seems very foreign and awkward, occassionally I can see the thread of "sense" that runs through it. That still doesn't mean I can remember which foot goes where, mind you. Mostly, I'm thankful for gravity because without it I'm not sure I could remember which direction to fall in.

Overall I'm having a great time. I'm mostly past the nervy stage I had at the beginning since I'm comfortable in how the class works and the people in it, even though I have no idea what I'm doing.

My biggest problem at the moment is that my rolls aren't very good. Or at least, aren't reliably good. I can get good ones in, and I can feel the difference *during* the roll but not always what I did differently. There is so little time during class to actually work on this, since I'm trying to figure out the move leading up to the roll. How did you learn? Did you go in early and just roll until you puked, or did you gradually pick it up during the process of learning other moves?

Jeff