Is there life outside Aikido?

Hi there Guys and Gals.
I am a member of another forum, completely unrelated to Aikido, namely the musical instrument makers forum (MIMF). I asked a question of the members there "what do you do other than make instruments". Bearing in mind that these guys produce some of the finest guitars and stuff that I have ever seen, the responses were as diverse as they were fascinating. So, what do the members of Aikiweb do when they're not being "human origamists"? I look forward to some interesting insights.
Have fun.
BTW are you still lurking there Bob?

This should be an interesting thread.

As for me; I live in Utah for the skiing. I'm not very good, but I love it. I have a degree in Anthropology and Art History. I am a trained archaeologist, but I work in PR and Event Marketing. If I do decide to go back to graduate school, I want to focus on the archaeology of pre-Buddhist Japan or the art history of early Buddhism. I speak three languages, French, Russian and English.

Enough?

For me, I like to read science fiction. I also am busy with work (software engineer), wife, and six-year-old daughter.

My 18 months of aikido practice has been mostly tolerated. If it was up to me I would likely practice a bit more than 3 times per week.

Hope to hear from more folks...

Wayne

Hi, in my alternate life I work as a residential real estate appraiser (many years), and am a wife and mom. Don't have a lot of free time, all of it seems to be spent in aikido (even more years). Main interests besides aikido are houses and dogs and going out hiking or bike riding (bent bikes only!).

Far too much time at work (industrial robotics engineer), rock climbing, scuba diving, reading scifi (or just about anything else for that matter), road biking, playing frisbee with the border collie (they never, ever, stop!), and spending time with the wife and kids (this is not in order of importance of course!)

Where in New England do you climb?

Normal life, I suppose....

Two jobs, one wife and kids set, one g-baby (live in with us)

Music, poorly, but enthusiastically played. Full contact armored combat...(SCA)

Competitive fencing... not as much lately due to time and location restraints tho.

Lan

Yes, there is life before, during, and after Aikido.

Professionally, I am a psychotherapist and a writer.

Personally, I am a father and a husband.

I'm a neuroscientist, doing a post doc in the study of motor control. I recently took up contact improv.

For a living I replace/repair interiors on corporate jets.

For fun outside of aikido I:

*read a lot.

*used to do medieval re-creation including the armored combat and fencing thing until work got in the way.

*do some (very) limited wood carving.

*play the bodhran (irish drum) and bones (two pieces of wood that look like rib bones).

*get together with my friends once a week to play games, either table top games like Settlers of Cataan (great game btw) or roleplaying games.

*listen to music. My two favorite bands ever are Oingo Boingo and Jethro Tull. I have almost everything commercially released by both groups.

*have also recently started iaido training.

Other than that it's just normal hang out with my girlfriend and play with our dog stuff.

Bronson

Seems to be a bit of a pattern developing here...

For a living i make various objects for sale, and contract pearl stringing.

Also i'm an Artists' Model

For fun-

i'm a performer and booth owner at Renaissance Faires, also Celtic Festivals & Music Festivals

i read a lot of Fantasy(mostly) & SF

i dance- from freestlye Grateful Dead type twirly dance to Ballet to Argentine Tango

for personal growth- Buddhist meditation, Aikido, Tai CHi, Concious Embodiment( Wendy Palmer's energy work which is really aikido slowed waaaaaay down, without throws)

and fart around the internet...

My other intrests outside of Aikido are live blues bands and photography. Photography has been a hobby for more than 20 years, mainly black and white inspired by Ansel Adams and Yosef Karsh. Aidido and photography are my two artistic outlets. As a matter of fact one sort of got me interested in the other. When I first got into the martial arts in 1996, Kenpo Karate, I started looking at the MA books in the book store. I really liked a lot of the b&w photos I saw in the books on Aikido. Even though they were still images I could see the flow and grace of Aikido in them. There were some pictures taken that were blurred, on purpose, to really show motion. Say in a throw uke's upper body would be still and their legs would be in motion so they would be blurred. I also saw a lot of smiling faces in the images. I thought "that looks like a lot of fun'. Now that I am training in Aikido (13 months in the last three years) I see the motion and smiling faces in person.

I could sit and watch Aikido all day. I look at it artistically. I hope to put my two hobbies together some day and photograph some Aikido. Since I partiscpate in Aikido I know what to look for in a shot and think could capture the essence of it.

I think one of the things that makes Aikido look so fluid is the Hakama. To me it spells "motion", even when it's still.

Hmm...let's see...a life outside of Aikido, huh?

I graduated in Spring of 2002 with a BAH in Philosophy, and am currently doing consulting work for Disabled Peoples' International/DPI (http://www.dpi.org), as they have contracted me to be their Volunteer Coordinator.

In my spare time, I do a variety of volunteer work for other organizations: from volunteer speaking engagements on subjects such as Self-Esteem, Body Image/Weight Preoccupation for schools and women's groups (on behalf of http://www.womenshealthclinic.org); to volunteer ESL teaching for new immigrants (at http://www.miic.ca); to online volunteer web and graphic design (for http://www.globalvolunteers.org)

I also enjoy: reading, writing, photography, outdoor pursuits (such as camping, hiking, canoeing --- time usually spent with my husband of almost one year now), the Arts (going to galleries, the theatre, the symphony), cooking and baking, dabbling in handicrafts here and there to make gifts for friends and family, and finally music...I really like singing (but rarely find the time for it these days) and am a fan of Jazz and Blues.

OK, I'm up:

I read a great deal, compose and produce trance and dark house music, DJ the same in various clubs, scuba dive as much as possible, play didjeridu, and enjoy travel photography (I'm in Korea right now with my cameras, although I live in Japan).

I also like to throat sing (Tuvan style), speak English, French, some Russian, some Danish, enough Japanese for basic conversation, and enough Cantonese to insult someone inadvertantly. <grin>

I'm Scottish by birth, Canadian by upbringing (moved there when I was 11), and American by naturalization (moved to the States in 1996 at the age of 31, got my citizenship October, 2002).

-drin

My turn:

When I'm not training, I'm:

working more than fulltime as an Occupational Therapist, working parttime on my Master's degree, and taking figure skating lessons.

Ukemi training helps on the ice.

Jeanne

Life is Aikido...the World is your Dojo.

When I'm not training I mostly wait for my next training session...

And in addition to that I study Finnish language and literature at the university, play the guitar and the drums, listen to music (prog rock and whatnot), read books and play console games.

When I'm not in aikido or tea ceremony, I'm doing home work, meditating, or talking about aikido and tea. I'm a student at Naropa University, getting a double major in Religious Studies and Traditional Eastern Arts (with a concentration in aikido), which means that the extent of my career possibilies are probably limited to dishwasher and janitor. That is, unless I go onto gradutate work and get involved with translating texts from Tibetan or Sanskrit, or something. I'm really into the traditional Japanese arts, but ones I identify with and focus on the most are tea ceremony (the urasenke school) and aikido.

I'm of the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, and am interested in pursuing studies in that direction.

There really isn't much else to say about myself. I like anime and currently like two Japanese pop music bands--SMAP and Da Pump. Other than that, my music tastes include opera, techno, western classical, Japanese classical (that is, hogaku), and a tiny bit of punk.