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Old 05-17-2010, 09:19 AM   #5
RED
Join Date: Apr 2009
Posts: 909
United_States
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Re: Your "big break" in Aikido

Personally,
I was 5th kyu (???4th kyu?maybe?), and I was taking a morning class from Yamada Sensei. The class was scheduled a lot earlier than Yamada Sensei wanted to be awake for. There was a party the night before and I think everyone stayed up late, so no one really wanted to be up in the morning.
Sensei seemed a little irritated that morning, especially considering the class was earlier than expected. With respect, his mood wasn't well.

I was a lazy Aikidoka, I trained with just enough effort to get pass the class honestly. I knew I was never gonna go far in this and shrugged off on effort.

Sensei made a b-line to me and my partner. Snatched my partner from me and proceeded to show me everything I was doing wrong. He went as far to say "EXTENSION! I failed black belts for this!"
For about 7-10 minutes I had the Shihan telling me how to improve. He demanded I not slack off.

A Shihan, who was (respectively)in a bad mood, awake earlier than he wanted to be passed by the strong young men, the uchi deshi, the promising young kyu ranks and helped me..a short, weak little, lazy 5th kyu girl. he could of walked passed and said "who cares, just a little girl, I'm tired, not worth wasting the energy on."
He gave me his time, almost 1/4 the class time...scared me... but gave me his time non-the-less.

That's a teacher.

Before that class I knew I was a little girl and I would slack and be lazy in class. I thought "Why really try too hard to keep up, It's not like I'm ever going to be some great Aikidoka some day? I'm a little girl I'm never gonna be as good as the big guys around me anyways? "

My break through was, if a Shihan didn't walk past me and cared if I progressed, I shouldn't walk pass myself.
He took time to demand I trained with a degree of excellence, I should honor the time I was given by him and all my teachers by expecting excellence in training.
And grew to find out that the big boys are extremely envious of my wide hips, and ridiculously low center of gravity. lol

Last edited by RED : 05-17-2010 at 09:24 AM.

MM
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