A Girl and her Aikido

After the first training, I was in major pain. I had to wear long sleeved shirts in the office for at least two weeks to hide the bloodshot mark I myself caused. Even though I was able to push a training through, afterwards I would find my body almost numb and exhausted. I was in really poor condition at that time and after trainings I would just shower and go to bed. And these were the one hour trainings at the Musubi Dojo. After around three month of training there, I moved to another town and stopped training.

After thorough researches, I started aikido again in March 2010. I enrolled to the Harmony Dojo and started going to the trainings. These would last for an hour and a half, and were much better organised. We were guided step by step how to advance in the techniques. It was there that the mae ukemi (forward roll) was at last explained to me with all the details and what it implied. At the beginning I would get really tired and  a couple of times I also asked to sit down because I was not feeling good. I was still weak but hoping and wanting to get stronger. Most of the time I would feel like not going to the trainings because I felt too weak and too stupid in comparison with the others, but I kept persevering and went training as much as my time permitted. In that spring I has a lot of work as I started a new job at a new company, but whenever I could I was sticking to the 2 trainings/week schedule. What I slowly observed was not only that I was acquiring better condition but also that I was learning a lot about how to coordinate my movements. I am still working on that, but I was amazed at the beginning how hard it was to send some commands from my brain, which understood what had to be done, to my body which should have executed it. That was why for a long time I had trouble with the rolls and with the falling techniques.

At the beginning I would have that funny sensation of what on earth will we be learning this time, will I manage? while going to the trainings. This transformed also as I was getting familiar with the people and with the techniques. But one sensation kept being the same from the beginning to now. That comfort and lightness of body one has only after training in a martial art. Just as if you were a butterfly with no tension in the muscles or joints, just lightness of spirit.