Rather a contrast to the title of the last blog post don't you think?
So, the topic of this post is mostly patience with a mixture of balance thrown in for good measure.
As a child, I was often told that patience is a virtue. I suppose I was quite stubborn as a child, and patience did not come naturally to me. It still doesn't even now, as an adult. Don't get me wrong, I am prepared to put time and effort into something, so long as I'm making progress, I just don't like the feeling of 'treading water' so to speak.
No, this is not a post about my grading to brown belt, more of what the last year has taught me about what I want and in some ways more importantly, need from my training. I have always said that I never started Aikido to get the much converted Dan grade, I just wanted to learn. But this last year has taught me how much I had forgotten the reasons why I turned up each week.
When I became ill through Endometriosis last year, and I couldn't train in the way I had become accustomed too, or even some weeks not train at all because of the pain I had, I began to despair of ever training properly or even grading again.
So why not just quit? It could be argued that I had good reason! But I didn't. Not because I was too stubborn to admit I was struggling after surgery still, but because the enforced rest period had changed my mind set. I found that the weeks when I couldn't breakfall or manage randori, I really began to enjoy the basics of Aikido again. Because of the chronic hip pain I had as a result of the Endometriosis, I found that I had some VERY bad habits but by working on these essential basics after surgery I had a chance of ironing them out. It felt like I was achieving something. There was a point to training again.
I felt a big difference this week. As part of our fitness drills we were doing 20 backwards ukemi into burpees. This time last year, I collapsed in a heap after 4. This time, I managed 12, only because my blood pressure was dropping too much, not because of the pain. But this is where the 'balance' comes in. I find that if I do too much, my body 'punishes' me so to speak the next day, but by pushing the boundaries little by little each week I am becoming me again. I am not necessarily focusing on grading soon, I just want to enjoy being me again, enjoying my Aikido.
