Grab My Wrist

Like Bread Dough

I’ve really been enjoying training lately, even though I have been at the dojo somewhat less to make time to work with Rainy, my horse. I look forward to classes like a kid on Christmas morning. I’m having fun with Rainy, and we’re progressing well, but I miss Aikido on the days I don’t go.  

The connections and similarities between Aikido and horsemanship go much deeper than I had expected. That will be the subject of my next column for ”The Mirror” on AikiWeb, in June. I’m constantly making wonderful discoveries in that area, and hearing virtually the same words from my horsemanship teacher and Sensei. There have been a few jaw-dropping moments with each where all I could think was “did I really just hear them say that?”

For most of this spring, summer, and probably fall I am in a really wonderful place with respect to dojo life. I’m not close to testing (my next exam will be for 4th kyu), and I’m not advanced enough to mentor others. I don’t have any seminars coming up. Nothing in particular is expected of me. I feel like bread dough that’s been left in a warm, quiet place to rise. The ingredients are all there, and well mixed. There’s nothing to do but let them expand and mature. Just train.

I can almost feel the synapses in my brain making new connections, as the discrete skills and pieces of information I’ve accumulated over the past year weave themselves together. Recently, after being off the mat for a few weeks with a minor muscle strain I felt like I’d been away forever. I was sure I’d forgotten half of what I barely knew in the first place. But there it was. My body remembered.

This kind of somatic learning has been a very interesting new experience, and something I am beginning to explore in more depth. It’s fascinating being the one it’s happening to, and sort of watching it from the the inside.

While I do enjoy the intensity of working toward an exam, or being ready for an upcoming event, training with no particular goal is very pleasant and rewarding. I feel more able to explore different aspects of techniques, focus on ukemi, and be satisfied with improving and ingraining. Refining and deepening my understanding, rather than accumulating new pieces of information. I’ve also been watching how others teach, because from 4th kyu onward there’s the possibility of being asked to mentor others who are preparing for their tests.

Because I have no responsibilities, I’ve been free to take on other little things. Cleaning this or that, bringing flowers for the shomen from time to time, getting video of some exams, and so on. We will be moving the dojo to a new location in July, and I’m looking forward to helping with that however I can.

But mostly I’m just enjoying training. 

Milestone: One Year in Aikido

I am celebrating the completion of my first year in Aikido by staying home and fighting off a cold. I really wanted to be on the mat tonight. Instead I have the opportunity to practice writing with only half my brain engaged. My apologies if I ramble.

It’s hard to believe it’s already been a year, but it also seems like a lifetime. In some ways, it has been a lifetime. I am not the same person I was when I first stepped onto the mat.

It would be impossible to overstate my gratitude and admiration for my teacher, Dave Goldberg Sensei. He passes on the touch of the founder through his technique, speaks our dojo community into existence, and embodies a safe space for discovery and transformation. He demonstrates that one can be vulnerable and strong, gentle and effective, trusting, allowing, patient, generous… These have been more powerful lessons than any exercise or technique I’ve learned.

I have trained 155 days. I’ve participated in seminars and workshops. There was a dojo retreat, picnic, exam days, lunches, and parties. I’ve learned a little about Japanese culture and language, martial ethics and history, and met the most wonderful people. I reached my goal of losing 40 pounds, and on the whole am much healthier (the present cold notwithstanding) and stronger. I’ve developed some discipline in other areas where I had been, frankly, a slob about things. I still have a long way to go.

I’ve tested for 6th and 5th kyu. Whoever said your first test is the hardest one was right, I think. But I need to guard against overconfidence. I forgot how fully I threw myself into training up to 6th kyu, and did not train as well as I might have as my 5th kyu test approached. Yes, I trained a lot, but not with the same focus and attention as at the beginning. I’ve been trying to reclaim that, while allowing the process of learning to happen, like healing, in its own good time.

I came to Aikido hoping to develop skills that would help me in my riding and horsemanship. So far, so good, in those terms. But it has gone so much deeper than just those skills, in directions I never anticipated. I have been experiencing how one learns motor skills, and watching how to teach in that realm. I now have my horse, Rainy, boarded where I can work with him regularly through the summer, with a great teacher, in the company of others on that same path. It has only been a few weeks, and already we are making more progress than in the past two years. If I’ve been a little behind in my blogging, it’s because I’ve been at the barn.

I came to Aikido determined and fearless, and have learned to temper those qualities with patience and judgment. I’ve learned to notice and treasure the cycles and rhythms of dojo life. I discovered that I really like training with weapons, and meditating. I’ve learned to be a little more gentle with myself, let my mind be a bit quieter, to allow others more space and time to be who they are.

Touching and being touched, even being hit or held, was never a problem. But it took me a while to get comfortable with watching people. At first it felt awkward to even casually look on as techniques were demonstrated, never mind openly studying another’s body, movement, and posture. It seemed rude, intrusive, and inappropriate. Now it’s an aesthetic delight and a source of wonder, like hearing beautiful music, and learning to pick out the bass lines and sing the harmonies.

After a lifetime of doing my best to dismiss what my body and emotions had to say, I have begun to allow myself to feel, and to acknowledge that feelings have legitimacy. I have discovered a whole world of somatic psychology, body work, motor learning, and conscious embodiment that I had never been aware of, and am finding it fascinating. My skeptical, literal, rational brain would have dismissed most of it a year ago, but enough direct experience tends to shut down those objections pretty soundly.

Robert Nadeau Shihan, my teacher’s teacher, when discussing dimensions of ourselves in our recent seminar, said “You don’t know who you are, really.” New dimensions reveal new aspects of ourselves. I’ve been catching glimpses. Some have been surprising. Each has felt a little like coming home - right, familiar, and comfortable.

On one of my first visits to the dojo someone asked me “So, how long are you going to do Aikido?” It seemed like such an odd question that I couldn’t even form an answer. I’m sure I just gave a confused stare. The answer was then, as it is now, “For the rest of my life.”

OK, Earth, take us for another spin around the Sun. Let’s see what there is to see on this trip.

Body, Border Collies, & Beer

Every month or two Sensei offers an Aikido In Focus workshop at the dojo. This time the subject was jiyuwaza, or freestyle. One-on-one practice, using whatever techniques are appropriate to the circumstances. Jiyuwaza is great fun. It’s also a source of endless frustration because I get in my head and freeze up trying to think of what I should do next, instead of going with the energy given to me by my training partner. I go to these workshops regardless, because they are always a valuable experience. But an In Focus workshop on the “free” in freestyle? Heck yes, sign me up. 

Aside from being familiar with the format and the topic of the workshop, I had no preconceptions or expectations. Honestly, I hadn’t even had time to think about it.

Every time I go to the dojo I take a few minutes on the way there to consider what I would like to get out of the experience. My hope for today was that I could let myself be open enough to get it.

I got to the dojo, warmed up, and bowed in.

These workshops are really experiential. You feel them. They get into your muscle memory and emotions. It would be very hard to write up any kind of synopsis. What it looked like was about a dozen people on the mat, talking briefly at first, moving into a standing body-awareness exercise, and then on to slow and simple, then progressively faster and more complex, partner practices that ended with people doing some really nice, flowing, centered freestyle. At the end we sat on the mat around a television, and watched video of our practice, critiqued ourselves, and got feedback from Sensei and the other participants. That’s not telling you much, but that’s what it looked like. 

And a Lamborghini looks like a car. Y’know, doors, wheels, an engine…

The first of several “Aha!” moments for me came during an exercise we’ve done quite a lot. We walk around the mat at random, and randomly settle into a grounded, centered, aligned stance for a few moments. Then back to walking, and settle again. And then continuing with circling and settling. I had not realized it, but I’d been patterning. I had been alternating right/left foot forward in the stance I settled into. No big deal. 

Wendy Palmer Sensei, in her book The Intuitive Body - Discovering the Wisdom of Conscious Embodiment and Aikido speaks of the mind being like a puppy, running off, investigating everything, sniffing around… Through the practice of body awareness she describes in the book, we learn to lovingly call our puppy-mind back to sit quietly at our side for longer and longer periods. 

If the mind is a puppy, mine was a Border Collie this morning. Border Collies are herding dogs. They have a clear idea of How Things Should Be, and they actively work to make them be that way. If the cows get out, into Some Place Cows Should Not Be, a Border Collie will get upset, and will go herd them back into their pasture.

This morning, in that first simple walking-circling-settling exercise, a space that opened up on the mat in front of me called for circling to the right. So I did. My Border Collie puppy-mind was instantly beside itself! “Woof, woof, woof!” We had just circled to the right the previous time, so we were (according to the pattern I did not know I had adopted) supposed to circle the left this time!

Thanks to the work we had just done on getting into our bodies I had done what there was to do. I was able to notice, from a somewhat detached perspective, that my mind was going off about it. I had not thought about it first, and then rejected the option of circling to the right. I just circled. 

It was a little thing, tiny, but significant. I felt the space. I moved without checking in with my mind. I noticed my thoughts, but they carried no weight. I was thrilled. 

One point Sensei brought up that stuck with me is that we can’t “stop thinking so much.” The mind just goes on thinking. Thinking about trying to think less doesn’t make for less thinking. Instead, Sensei suggested that we focus on being present in the body.

The exercises at the start of the class were to help us get into our bodies. I should make a habit of doing them every morning.  We’ve done them before, in other workshops, and they have a profound effect on me. I find I’m more open and aware, quieter, more balanced… It’s a state that’s incompatible with frantic rushing about. Time moves more slowly. I’m able to more fully experience whatever it is I’m doing at the moment. Peripheral vision expands. It’s the calm that comes from being in nature. It’s a state I usually only get to after a week-long vacation. I’d like to get there more.

Near the end of the workshop, when my partner and I were waiting our turn on the mat in front of the rest of the group, there was a minor injury. Everything stopped, people went to help, and ice packs were brought out. The person was made comfortable on the mat where they could continue watching, and the next pair was called up. 

I noticed an interesting thing: Whatever that state was that I’d been in for the past hour and a half was shattered. I had been feeling relaxed, confident, and looking forward to our turn to “play” just moments before. But now suddenly found I was right back into thinking about what techniques I’d do, and worrying that I’d freeze up. And there was something physical, too. Some new awareness, or something missing… I’m not sure. It was like snapping out of hypnosis and wondering why you’re standing on a stage in front of all these people, holding a microphone.

The good news is that, having just been in a better place, I recognized that I was not there now. Sitting there, I went back to the exercises from the start of class, feeling the mat supporting me, doing an inventory of tensions and sensations throughout my body. I was mostly able to get back to that place. 

You know how it is when you crack open a beer after a long day? The “pssst” when the cap lets go? The cold condensation and wet glass and label against your palm? You lift the bottle, and immediately relax a little. “Ahhhh… Life is good…” Your problems seem a little less troubling, and your friends seem a little more dear. The beer has done nothing at this point. It’s all you. A conditioned response. You can jump into that zone on just a few cues. I have the same kind of experience when I step onto the mat before classes in the evening. Everything else from the day drifts off on the breeze, and there is only the present reality of the dojo. This is something I’d like to explore with getting to the state of being that was evoked in the workshop. With practice, it should be available more quickly, naturally. We have the skill to make that shift. We do it automatically and unintentionally all the time. I’m going to play with doing it intentionally.

I spent the rest of the day quietly doing errands and chores, reflecting, feeling what there was to feel, and wondering in gratitude at the privilege of working with such a gifted teacher and guide. I am always amazed at what can be experienced in only a short two hours. Often these workshops take days to sink in. I can still feel the energy resonating. There’s more there. 

Questions for My Teacher’s Teacher

My teacher’s teacher is coming to our dojo in April. My teacher, Dave Goldberg Sensei, is a student of Robert Nadeau Shihan. Nadeau Shihan will be leading a seminar at Aikido of San Diego, April 9-11, 2010.

Nadeau Shihan, 7th Dan, trained in Japan with O Sensei in the 1960s. He has been teaching Aikido since 1965. He runs two dojo: Aikido of Mountain View, and City Aikido in San Francisco. His students have included several of my favorite Aikido authors: George Leonard, Wendy Palmer, and Richard Strozzi-Heckler Sensei. He is a founder and division head (Division 3) of the California Aikido Association. It is an honor to have him come to work with us.

I had the privilege of training with Nadeau Shihan last year, before I’d even tested for 6th kyu, and very much enjoy and “get” his approach to teaching. I’m really looking forward to training with him again, now that I have a tiny bit more experience and perspective.

This year, Friday evening will be a question and answer session. We’ve been invited to submit questions. I thought it might be interesting to share my questions here. If you want the answers, come to the seminar. Not that all, or any, of these will be asked, of course. Lots of people will be asking questions. This is just my unfiltered list - the things I wonder about.*

Your Experience of Aikido

Q: What brought you to Aikido?

Q: Is there something in your background that made you particularly receptive to, or inquisitive about, what has been available for you in Aikido?

Q: Did you find support and validation in Aikido for who you were already, or did Aikido change you?

Q: Is there something you wish you’d discovered or realized earlier in your Aikido training that would’ve helped you grow or learn? Or something you actually did discover or realize, that fundamentally changed your approach or understanding?

Or perhaps is there something you hope your students can grasp (or let go of), that would help them? Is there something you see your students struggling with, that you wish they could just *get* more easily?

Q: Are there activities you find to be complementary to your Aikido practice? (Meditation, gardening, …) Would you recommend them to others, or does everyone have to find their own way?

Q: In your experience of the larger “I” knowing who you are (such as why you love “junk,” or love movement), were those sudden realizations, that you immediately saw (“Aha!) to be true? Or did you go through a lot of seeking and questioning before you discovered what was so for you?

Q: Do you continue to make discoveries about yourself through your practice of Aikido? How has that changed over time?

Aiki

Q: What kind of change of consciousness, or development of consciousness, is possible through Aikido? What might that look like, in people’s lives? In a community? In the world?

Q: How does Aikido work? How much is mechanics, psychology, emotion, spiritual, energetic? Or do those characterizations even make sense in the context of Aikido?

The Art of Aikido

Q: If Aikido is a way of helping to bring peace and happiness to the world, what is the process by which you see that happening?

Q: How has Aikido changed since you first came to it? Has it expanded and strengthened? Or lost focus, gone off the tracks, or become diluted?

Q: What are your hopes for the future of Aikido, and how might that future come about?

Teaching, Sensei, and Students

Q: Do you see a correlation between the reasons people come to Aikido, and their likelihood to stay with the practice? Or maybe, does it matter why people walk through the door of the dojo, or just that they do?

Q: What do you see as the best way to teach Aikido? Does the teacher convey knowledge directly, simply demonstrate, or support the student somehow in making discoveries on their own?

Q: What do you see as a Sensei’s place in a student’s life? Instructor of practical skills? Role model? Spiritual guide? Counselor? Parental figure? Friend?

Q: What do you hope your students (or students of Aikido in general) will get from practicing Aikido?

Q: What do you hope your students (or students of Aikido in general) might contribute to Aikido?

Your Experience of O Sensei

Q: How would you characterize your relationship with O Sensei?

Q: Did O Sensei make requests of you (and of others, if you know), like “Go back to the U.S. and teach this”? Was he teaching his students to teach, necessarily?

Q: You have said that O Sensei had a process by which he could quickly jump into a bigger / higher level of himself. Could you tell us about the nature of that process? (Was it a physical practice? Meditation or prayer?)

Q: Do you think that Aikido today is (or is becoming) what O Sensei envisioned for it? Is it growing and spreading as he’d hoped? Affecting humanity as he’d intended? Better / worse / different?

Q: If you could spend an evening talking with O Sensei now, what would ask him? Or tell him?

In thinking about these questions, it struck me that the world might be a much different place for many, many people, had a certain young Robert Nadeau not somehow connected with Aikido. Just another example of how one pebble can make waves affecting an entire ocean.

*It occurred to me the day after posting these questions (and sending them off to Sensei) that I’d be interested in hearing others’ answers to them as well. If you teach Aikido, or have just practiced for a long time (however you define that), please feel free to copy some or all of my questions, and answer them on your own blog or Web site. I’d appreciate a mention, and please let me know where I can go to read your answers. Thanks!

Downs & Ups of Exam Prep

My exam for 5th kyu is Saturday morning - tomorrow. When I first started working with my mentor a month ago we began with a sort of diagnostic run-through of the exam. I knew all the technique names, and basically what they were. There was plenty of room for correction and refinement, but I wasn’t completely lost. I felt like I was on a pretty good trajectory for being ready by exam day.

Then in mid-January I did a seminar, which was great fun, and a tremendous experience. I loved it, but it was exhausting, and dumped a whole lot of new information into my little 6th-kyu brain.

The next couple of weeks were difficult all around, and left my confidence a bit battered. I couldn’t seem to do anything right in class. Friends on Facebook were commenting that my Aikido posts had been negative lately.

I accumulated a dozen or so small injuries and ailments - a jammed thumb, a knee that didn’t like to bend, sore shoulders and neck muscles, a stomped foot, assorted bruises and tight muscles, etc. I found myself stiff and guarded. Lingering symptoms from a cold in December returned, and my breathing was getting clogged up during class. One night I must have been dehydrated, and whited out (and sat right back down) when I stood up quickly from seiza.

Last Wednesday I had the worst bout of vertigo since starting Aikido. The world was spinning. I felt seasick and was tipping over and falling into things. Feeling grounded isn’t even a possibility in that state.

Vertigo also causes a cognitive hit, from all that brain CPU being used just to navigate in the world, I guess. It’s like the brain fog that rolls in when one has a cold. When I worked with my mentor last Friday, terminology I had down solid a month ago was lost in the fog. Techniques I’ve done well enough a hundred times were incomprehensible. I felt overwhelmed by how much I had left to learn.

There were other little things. Work seemed to be a morass of interruptions, distractions, and conflicting priorities. I couldn’t seem to get caught up on chores at home. One night a car easily going 100 mph very nearly rear-ended me on the freeway. The universe was not being kind.

Then on Sunday I participated in one of Sensei’s “In Focus” workshops, this time on ukemi. These workshops push us a bit. They are always revealing, and usually fun. While some of the exercises in this one were indeed fun, on the whole the experience was, for me, profoundly discouraging. The toes on my stomped foot were numb. I’d rolled funny on one shoulder, so my whole arm hurt and my fingers were tingling. I was told, and could see in the video, what I was doing wrong, but couldn’t feel it. It felt right, but wasn’t. Without accurate perceptions how can one make corrections? I’d had a similar experience, where I could not grasp *how* to learn something else in the past, and in that case I just give up entirely. So running into this particular personal brick wall was hard. Giving up Aikido is not an option, but I couldn’t see my way around the wall. A very perceptive fellow student gave me a bit of a pep talk (or a kick in the butt), but it was still a difficult day.

Less than a week to my test, and it felt like my Aikido, barely held together with duct tape and baling twine on a good day, was falling apart. Sunday night my status on Facebook said “Linda Eskin is looking for the lesson, hard.”

By Monday morning I decided I had to dig myself out of my rut. I remembered to take my allergy meds so I could breathe. I drank plenty of water, and walked at lunch. I stocked up on Gatorade and bananas to keep dehydration and muscle spasms at bay. I skipped going to the dojo to stay home to rest and heal, and to really study. I watched videos of each technique, reviewed my old descriptions of each, and wrote out new ones. When anything wasn’t clear, I noted that, so I could ask about it.

On Tuesday I visualized the whole test over and over. As I fed Rainy and the donkeys I heard the words Sensei will say, let myself be aware of the little crowd of parents there to watch their kids’ tests, felt what the cool blue mat will feel like, smelled how the mid-morning air will smell when it comes in across the little stream out behind the dojo, and heard the birds singing in the reeds. I saw and felt each technique in picture-perfect detail. I ran through it again as I got ready for work. Once more while I walked at lunch. And again as I drove to the dojo.

Tuesday night I did both classes. We reviewed all the techniques I was having trouble with, and did some great work on jiyuwaza. After class I got to practice with my mentor and with my fellow 5th Kyu candidate. We both did the whole test, plus jiyuwaza with each other. We got video of everything, and posted it so we could review it during the week. I felt so much better! Not quite ready, but confident that I could be ready by Saturday. Back on track!

Wednesday was another day off from classes. I iced and rested the ouchy parts, studied and visualized the techniques, and went out to dinner with my dear husband, Michael. Ended the day feeling more settled.

Yesterday morning, Thursday, I put together a playlist of positive, high-energy music that I love, and listened to that while driving. In the middle of a long day of meetings at work I managed to get outdoors once, sit quietly, and do the whole test again. The weapons class in the evening was very calming and reassuring. I may not be any better at weapons than at anything else, but I find them easier to comprehend. So weapons classes generally leave me feeling like I might have a bit of a clue about this stuff. I stayed late to watch some of the advanced class, write some notes and be sure I had all my questions down to ask my mentor on Friday. The class was doing some really interesting work on feeling shared energy and going with it. I’m very glad I stayed. I left feeling quietly excited, happy, and very grateful to be able to train with Sensei and my dojo mates.

Tonight is a 90-minute class with Sensei, and then a full run-through of the exam with my mentor. I’m really looking forward to both.  All I have to do tomorrow is show up, relax, breathe, and have fun.

When Goals Go Bad

A couple of months ago, roughly, I set a goal for myself of training as if I were going to be testing for 5th kyu on February 6th, the next day tests are held at our dojo. As I said in a post about it then, my goal was not to test that day, or even to be ready to test that day, just to train so that I could be as prepared as possible.

What I was hoping to avoid was what I did before my 6th kyu test. In that case I was bopping along happily training in whatever came along in class (which is great), but not paying any particular attention to what techniques that would be required on the test. When my name appeared on the Dreaded Dojo Whiteboard (where Sensei writes the candidates names), I found I had a lot of learning to do. So I was hoping to at least be less blindsided if my name were to appear this time around.

If you’ve read my last few posts you know that I’ve been uneasy about something recently. I couldn’t put my finger on it, though. It felt like some mashup of grief, disappointment, pressure, and feeling very inadequate. But I couldn’t put my finger on a reason. There were no circumstances to support feeling like that, or none that I could see.

What was really out of character was Thursday night, in weapons class. I was freaked out at not feeling like I had one of the techniques down clearly. I didn’t know it, and felt like I should’ve known it. Sensei was walking around the mat watching and correcting people, as senseis do when they are teaching, you know, normally. I was really concerned that he might see that I didn’t know what the heck I was doing. Mind you, I fully realize the absurdity of that thinking, on a lot of levels. Just the same… I could hardly make myself breathe, I was so wound up.

I blogged about that on Friday morning (“Stupid Ego”), and one of my friends commented “hmmm just wondering but would it have anything to do with you having set a deadline for your next test? Perhaps not realizing it but feeling the pressure to get up to the next level by a certain time period might be part of the issue.” My first reaction to that was basically “no, no, that’s not it, I wasn’t really trying to test then, blah, blah…” But the more I thought about it, the more I see she nailed it. I was saying I wasn’t really trying to test this time around, but really… I was kinda hoping I’d would.

(For those readers who aren’t familiar with martial arts, you test when your teacher decides you are ready. You don’t ask to be considered. You, of all people, are the least qualified to make any determination about your own readiness. You just train. If your teacher says you’re ready to test, you test.)

How it works at our dojo is that before you can be considered to test for 5th kyu you have to have done at least 40 training days (not hours or classes) since your 6th kyu test. I  have been really pushing to get there, and just hit 40 just a couple of weeks ago. Suddenly at 40+ there’s the possibility of being considered for testing. At least a month before your test you need to find a senior student who is willing to mentor you. I’ve talked to a few, and have had a few in mind, just in case, because if your name appears on The Whiteboard you’d best get busy finding a mentor, fast, especially if you have a preference for who you work with. Because the next test date is February 6th, and everyone needs to have a mentor at least a month ahead of time, if you’re not called to test by the first few days of January, you’re not testing this time around. So there’s a pretty narrow window time there.

Anyway… I’ve been assuming (probably wrongly, but there goes my little mind & ego, running off together) that Sensei has been watching to see if I’m within shooting distance of testing in February. And I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on myself to not screw up, and really feeling it when I do (inevitably) do just that.

My friend’s comment finally rang true when I put the dates together and discovered that the unidentifiable knot in my gut started about the time I hit 40 days, when testing became a possibility. Once I realized that I really did have some attachment to, or at least attention on, being called on to test, I was able to let that go a little, and the knot started to unwind. I had a wonderful time in Friday night’s class, just training.

Enthusiastically getting to the point where something is a possibilty, and actually doing it, are two very different things. Like signing up to go skydiving is a different experience from jumping out of the plane. I’ve spent a few months training as though I intended to be ready to test in February. I signed up for the skydiving trip. Do I have an opinion about whether I could actually be ready to test? Sure. I have a lot of opinions about that, some of them in direct contradiction. And, quite correctly, they count for nothing.

I find I’m consciously having to let go, and let go, and let go of any attachment I have to the whole testing thing. What there is to do is to train, relax, learn about Aikido, and have fun, so that’s what I’m going to do.

Big sigh… There, that feels so much better…