Hi, my name is Linda Eskin. In May of 2009, at age 46, I came to Aikido to improve my horsemanship. It's become about much more than that for me.
I train with Dave Goldberg Sensei at Aikido of San Diego.
Everything I say here is just what I say. Don't believe me. Find out for yourself.
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A LITTLE ABOUT ME
Most of the posts here are duplicates of my posts from
my blog on AikiWeb.com, a very active and friendly community of Aikido students and teachers. If you are a member of AikiWeb, and would like to comment, please do so there.
I am a beginning student of Aikido, a martial art that, like horsemanship, takes a lifetime to master. These posts are only my own observations on my own experience. You should not rely on anything I say here. Any inept or incorrect information is my own responsibility, and should not be a reflection on others.
I am grateful to
Dave Goldberg Sensei for being an extraordinary teacher, and for creating an engaged, thinking, and compassionate community of students and teachers at
Aikido of San Diego. If you are in the area, visitors are always welcome to observe classes. If you are a student at another local dojo, keep an eye on
our dojo calendar for upcoming seminars and other events.
Copyright 2009, 2010, 2011, Linda Eskin. Please feel free to share any of my poetry, online, or in print, keeping my name and any other acknowledgments with it. I will almost certainly be happy to let you use anything else I've posted here, with proper attribution, but please ask first.
Contact me via e-mail
Linda Eskin
MORE AIKIDO READING
Stupid Ego
I like to imagine that I am a rational person. I would like to believe that I don’t care so much what other people think. It’s nice to pretend that I have enough sense to know that a beginner is not expected to do things perfectly all the time. Or ever.
So why was I wound tighter than a sharp E string last night in class, when I felt like I didn’t know how to do a technique correctly? I reminded myself to breathe, drop my shoulders, settle, breathe, drop my shoulders… It had no effect on the fear of humiliation turning my stomach into a knotted wet rag.
Watching myself from a sort of disembodied perspective it was pretty funny. Like “You idiot. Knock it off. You’re a freakin’ 6th kyu. Get over yourself.” But even when you know you’re being ridiculous it’s not always easy to shift to a more effective way of being.
It’s easy being a total newbie. It’s OK to know nothing at first. There’s no pressure. Maybe I’ve reached a point where I expect that I should know something by now. After a whole, what… less than a year?
And so here I am, being impatient with myself for being impatient with myself. Stupid ego.
