Article: This is MY Mat! by "The Mirror"

Discuss the article, "This is MY Mat!" by "The Mirror" here.

Article URL: http://www.aikiweb.com/columns/themirror/2004_04.html

If one's opinion can be seen as a feeling of their own heart - please allow me to say that I found this article to be excellent. Thank you for the article and for the feeling.

dmv

Very nice article.

What a wonderful article. I do pretty well looking out for myself in the "real" world, having learned back in the 4th grade how to cope with nasty classmates; but I do find that aikido has helped me with the really big conflicts. I stay calmer when someone attacks me (physically on the mat or verbally in local politics or whatever), and it doesn't throw me off-balance like it used to.

The hardest part of my aikido training right now is kuzushi done by bumping into uke, because I was taught growing up that you just don't DO things like that. It's funny which things bump up against my "programming." Before this, I couldn't manage to make contact doing atemi because "girls don't hit." It's amazing what I can learn to do when I

put my mind to it!

I have a feeling "This is MY mat!" would do me a world of good; I believe I'll think that to myself in class next time we're swapping throws.

Thanks David, Aleksey, and Wendy, for your kind comments. Interesting, isn't it, that aikido can help aggressive folks become more gentle and aware; at the same time helping passive people learn to enter. I admit I'm no where close to the point where I can geniunely thank this man for the lessons he helped me learn, but I do see they were very valuable lessons.

Susan, the column is wonderful.
It makes me think of how we model what we want to be, even if it feels like a fake and a fraud inside, to help us change and "really mean (be) it."

Susan,

I enjoyed your offering in "The Mirror" this month a lot. I have seen many people make changes in their lives through budo practice. It continues to delight me to see these changes because, as a teacher, I get to learn from their changes as well. As one of my teachers used to say, "We all have much to learn from each other." Thanks for sharing.

Susan,

Could you elaborate a little more about "fake aikido" and what your Sensei meant by that? I think I understand, but I would like to hear more about that from you; what do you come to realize; what reason is there to thank the boss; what is the difference in "aikido" and what you were actually doing?

Thanks! I look forward to reading your answer and further articles from "The Mirror."

Dear John,
I've thought quite a bit about what my sensei said to me. I think he meant I was still "caught". Although I could breathe and relax and maintain my center enough so I didn't cry during interactions with this man, afterward I was obsessing and complaining about him. I still saw myself as a victim and him as the big bad guy-- I gave him far too much of my energy.

What changed with the second interaction was I did what I did and it was over. Of course this situation is much different because I have no history with this person and don't interact with him daily. Still, it represents a major change in my thinking. Probably a few years earlier I would have found out this person's name and his dojo--I would have seen him as a bully and myself as a victim. And I probably would have created drama--either in my mind or in reality. However, I don't know his name and I wouldn't recognize him if I saw him again--I can't remember much about him except he gave me the opportunity to practice, and I learned something about myself and what all those hours of aikido practice put into my body.
Susan

Janet Rosen wrote: Susan, the column is wonderful. It makes me think of how we model what we want to be, even if it feels like a fake and a fraud inside, to help us change and "really mean (be) it."

John,
What Janet said is another way to explain what I think my sensei meant. Thanks, Janet.
Susan

Chuck Clark wrote: Susan, I enjoyed your offering in "The Mirror" this month a lot. I have seen many people make changes in their lives through budo practice. It continues to delight me to see these changes because, as a teacher, I get to learn from their changes as well. As one of my teachers used to say, "We all have much to learn from each other." Thanks for sharing.

Thank you, Sensei. Aikido has been a very poweful force of change in my life. ( I have to be careful not to think it's what everyone needs.) In the beginning, I tended to think, "Everyone else gets this and I'm the only one who struggles." Now I understand that we all have different struggles.
Susan

This article should be required reading for everyone posting on the 'Size matters' thread.

Hello Ms. Dalton

This is a tardy response to your esay, but I would just like to say that it just represents, for me, "the real thing" and won I can identify with too. Thanking somebody for something like you describe is as hard as "turning the other cheek" as they say. Something I'm a long way from. To me, that state of "being thankful" and practicing it is one of the best things about doing Aikido I discovered and learned about my own deficiencies with regard to it. It's just hard work, I guess.

Anyway, it seems to me, without a strong healthy ego structure to begin with it's hard to even get to that "place of thanksgiving" where one KNOWS why it's important.

And Thank You!

Nice article! I have an easier time on the mat than in the real world. Still working on that one...

Ron