Falling Down and Getting Up
I started taking aikido classes a month ago. I’ve worked out a trade with the sensei there and I’m writing his newsletter and able to practice there. I took about four classes and found out there was a seminar coming up and a fellow classmate convinced me to sign up for it. So I did.
The sensei who was doing the seminar is from Finland – a 57-year-old woman who has done Aikido for 40 years. It was an experience. All last weekend, instead of being at Bayou Boogaloo or elsewhere, I was instead immersed in learning how to get up after falling down.
What a metaphor for my life, huh?
Or, for life in general. Aikido is the martial art of peace. But it is not just about peaceful resistance, it’s about feeling your opponent’s energy, drawing your attacker in close, and then changing the focus, redirecting the negative to the positive.
Watching this woman stand so rooted into the ground, a smile on her face, while she flipped and pinned her opponents with natural ease was intoxicating, exhilarating. It was a study in life.