Thread: One True Thing
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Old 02-19-2003, 01:06 PM   #18
DGLinden
Dojo: Shoshin Aikido Dojos
Location: Orlando
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 159
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Thank you all - these are the kinds of things I was looking for. Most seem to come unexpectedly while we are getting on with the rest of our lives; sometimes they actually come out of effort and endeavor.

There was true intent when I made that vase although I have never been able to duplicate it. My grandfather took me hunting once when I was about 9 or 10 and he told me that pheasant will do that little trick sometimes and by God, there it was. The Aikido? Ahh, there's the rub. Should be able to do it all the time after all these years and my lovely wife says that I only remember that technique because it was the very first time I touched the infinite. She says I do it all the time now and it is just old hat, but what does she know?

I reach for the infinite all the time now. I search for the sublime. When you face the mirror and realize there are more days behind you than in front it makes the effort and the success much sweeter and that one true thing that much more dear.

Yes, I remember a light coming through a window on a clear spring morning and a young girl looking at a photo of my grandmother - the soft blond hair, the light, a single touch and the years melted away and I found myself touching the flow of time and space. I don't want to wax too emotive, but that moment happened 35 years ago.

Okay. Osawa Sensei used me for uke about thirty years ago and stepped on my gi as he motioned me to get up - holding his hand above me. I couldn't move and looked down to see where he was holding me. I saw both his feet and naturally assumed he had moved and I could now get up. I couldn't. I lay there looking up at him and trying to move, completely puzzled, and then realized why I was pinned to the mat without a single part of him touching me...

He smiled, removed his hand and the weight was gone. I remember this as clearly as if it were yesterday. Moving back to the side of the mat in a complete daze, actually quite terified, my partner looked up at me and mouthed "thats B--- S---, nobody can do that!"

Osawa Sensei then called him out and repeated it. He walked off the mat and never trained again. I've spent my life trying to find that nexus once again.

Daniel G. Linden
Author of ON MASTERING AIKIDO (c) 2004
Founder Shoshin Aikido Dojos
www.shoshindojo.com
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