On Aikdio frustrations
It seems that the more I practice Aikido, the worse I get. I just got back from an extremely frustrating aikido class, took out and sorted my 8 types of tonight's recycling (the other 2 plus burnables goes out friday), came in, and had a delicious grape chu-hi. Now, I was speaking with Randy earlier in the night, who made the claim that I have one of the biggest egos of anyone he knows. Maybe tied with Josh. Now, I couldn't figure out if he was joking or not, but it certainly might explain why I was so frustrated with myself in Aikido tonight. It might be something like this... So I majored in biology, because it was really easy for me, and thus made me feel really smart. Now I'm doing something that I can't sleep through and get an A, and I am not handling it well.
It's easy to say, "I'm not a shodan (insert nidan, sandan... shihan) therefore I can't do this technique". But then I tell myself "Allison, you've been doing this for four years now. Certainly you're better than this. FOCUS!!! Why aren't you focussing? Stop yelling at yourself and focus!" A more focussed Allison emerges... "Ok, my partner has got this timing thing down pretty well, try to adopt that and see what happens." I try to pick up what he is doing and mess it up, leading to: "why don't you have timing Allison? You aren't getting this at all! AAAAahhh stop thinking and just train".
This thought process (process? there is no process here) continues throughout class, with me never being able to get my head straight. So now I can't decide if it would be better to take tomorrow off, and go in Friday (or saturday) really missing aikido, or if I should go to class tomorrow, and take the attitude that training is training, get on the mat and stop complaining.
At any rate, I should get to bed and stop procrastinating taking a shower, which I have done because my towels are in the washer.
If anyone has any suggestions or comments, either about my aikido, my excessive thinking on the mat, or on the size of mine (or Josh's) ego, please leave me a comment! Remember, real friends leave messages!
Al
posted by aburke @ 11:22 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Well, I think the opposite is true, that you do not have a big enough ego, hence get tense and anxious which interferes with ability to go with the flow and respond intuitively. SSB in Indy
Hi there, my fellow scientist!
The jet lag has finally ended and I'm checking up on blogs. I remembered your Japanic and thought I'd drop in to say hi.
So, I hope life is bareable without Gwynne and I around... ;^)
I'm glad we had a chance to meet, you certainly have a sense of curiosity that keeps the conversation alive...
As for Aikido, I definately think the best thing to do with a roadblock such as this is to face it. As with any meditation, it's the consistancy of practice that leads to mastery!
Shay
Yay for comments!
Thank you! And here I was feeling unloved.
Hi Ali!
I hear exactly where you're coming from. When I was a kid, I used to be good at everything. Except for math. And I was a perfectionist, and there was a lot of well, not so much pride involved, as much as a fear of failure.
So I used to do whatever I was good at until it took some work and there was a chance that I would make a mistake. No really. I wouldn't practice my violin until nobody was in the house anymore, then I would play it very very softly in my room so that if I hit any note that was off key, nobody else would hear it, and nobody would hear an unintentional squeak.
Obviously, I couldn't keep this up forever. My teacher was a viola player on the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra. He was going crazy about me and making a really big big-to-do about everything, that I was just the most gifted student he'd ever worked with, blah blah blah, and he couldn't handle the pain of my not practicing. He gathered pretty quickly that I wouldn't practice, and that I would come in and look at the sheet music and very quickly process what I needed to do and suddenly do it on the spot. The more he pushed, the more I refused to respond. Until he said he could no longer teach me, because it was paining him too much. The drama this caused was incredible.
It took me years to get over this and turn my attitude around and get over the fear of failure. It's still a struggle in some things, particularly things that take work that I am not particularly good at. But it's important to just embrace your failures and realize that when the time is right, something will shift and click. And that occurrence is usually not due to us pushing and pushing, but releasing our desire to control things.
Hope this helps.
You said it best yourself, "training is training, get on the mat and stop complaining."
And remember, the only bad training is no training at all.
--jim sensei
wow! I didnt know you would take the teasing so serious...I believe your words before I said that might have been a sigh followed by "Randy when are you gonna learn I know everything?".
Ive heard a couple different sensei say that sometimes if Aikido seems frustrating that you should try to look at it as challenging instead.
I miss training with you!
Randy
"There is no way of peace, peace is the way" from my zen calendar
Post a Comment
<< Home