|
Re: What's your sensei teaching you?
What strikes me about my teachers lately is that they're teaching me three things:
(1) How to do some aikido, which I thought was the point when I started;
(2) How to learn aikido--I realized how much they'd taught me about that when I tried visiting other dojo and had to "start from scratch" on certain techniques. My ability to do so was far better than when I was a beginner, and I could see the specific things they'd done to improve it.
(3) How to teach aikido. This is a constant theme, though usually a subtle one. They'll ask me to evaluate another student's form; they'll teach me how to lead a terrified newbie uke through a move in the most effective way. And I see my seniors being challenged to do more than that, up to and including leading their own classes.
I didn't know 2 and 3 were part of the package, but I find myself deeply interested in all three.
("Teachers" throughout this because we don't have a single person who's identifiably the sensei of the dojo. I do four classes a week from four different instructors, and lean a great deal from them all.)
Mary Kaye
|