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Old 01-01-2010, 10:32 AM   #32
Jacqueline von Arb
 
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Dojo: JuShinKan Aikido
Location: Stavanger, Norway
Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 16
Norway
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Re: Everybody Is An Instructor….

How about turning the whole thing around and looking at it as in "everyone's a beginner"?

At a weekend seminar, I got talking with the guest sensei, who eventually enquired which grade I was. Embarassed at being a 6th or 5th kyu at the time, I tried to dismiss the question with an "oh, me? I'm just a beginner", upon which the sensei (6th dan...) answered "aaah! me too!".

One of those great lessons... beginner's mind...

Ever since, I actively (best I can...) look for whatever lesson every type of partner I surreptitiously end up with can bring me, be it a quiet one, a lecturing one, a laugh-at-me one, good-contact one, no-contact one, stiff one, overly elastic one, no-belt or dan-notched ones...

and I often find that the lesson isn't necessarily the disected understanding of a particular technique... and not always the one they had intended to teach me...

Sometimes I learn those lessons by "shut up and train" and at other times I learn them by contributing a few words - and in the latter case, it's usually least offensive in the form of a question.

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