About 6 years ago I entered an Aikido dojo for the first time in my life. I was looking for a different way of exercise. What I ended up finding was a beautiful martial art that seemed to extend to every aspect of my life.
After a knee injury and a few moves around the world, I finally had the chance to go back. I was nervous as I stepped in the dojo last night wearing my brand new dogi, once again a white belt. I took my shoes off and bowed before entering ( at least hadn´t forgotten these basic actions) and offered to help out. That´s another beautiful thing about martial arts, everyone is involved in preparing the class, laying mats, cleaning up after and, of course, saving new students.
There´s this interesting sense of duty among higher ranking students, they don´t have to be told to look after the newbies, but over and over again during the training I would have a very experienced student sitting right next to me and guiding me through the techniques. At first I was a bit embarrassed, I knew how to do all that five years ago! And see, this is lesson one when Aikido comes into your life. Don´t be afraid of making a fool of yourself. Be humble, allow yourself to relearn the basics. In my case, learning how to stand, move and most importantly, fall.
When you know how to fall properly, you minimize injuries and pick yourself up quickly. And children can do that so easily, but as we grow up, we get stiff, we fight back the natural instinct of going with the flow.
I´m glad I´m back. I´ve taken a few bad falls lately. I better pick myself up and get ready to fall again. Maybe next time more graciously!
