Finding my Ki
Nov. 19th, 2004 10:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sienamysticI was in my Junior year of high school when I discovered aikido. I was studying in the Philippines, and my math teacher, a guy who epitomized the combination of brains plus brawn (swam three miles every day, avid long-distance biker, plus, there was that math teacher thing) encouraged me to give it a try - he had been studying for a while. I was interested, because I had studied tai kuan do when I lived in Korea (I was six, and there are still a few pictures floating around of little me, looking stern and yelling "hi-yah!") Plus, I had a raging crush on said math teacher, which I'm sure was as transparent as glass because I am and still remain a quiet, bookish nerd with no idea how to flirt discreetly. So I went ahead and signed up. Classes were held in a quiet dojo on the grounds of the Manila Polo Club, where my horse was stabled. A kendo class was there before us, so usually I arrived to hear the *thwack* of bamboo swords against armor. I'd run and change, and come in and make my bows.
It turned into one of the best things I had ever done for myself. I found myself doing things I had never expected; my cumbersome body was starting to become fluid. I learned how to fall. I learned how a small turn of my wrist could be the difference between success and failure. I cherished the long callus on my foot that came from working on the mats, because it was proof that I was part of this community of students. I adored weapons practice, working through katas in the still-lingering heat of Manila's early evening. I grew to love the smell of my own sweat, honestly earned.
On a completely shallow side note, few students with a crush on their teacher ever got to grapple with him and fall to a mat with him on top of you. Or see him naked to the waist, with his tan back above and snowy white gi pants below - he had one of the most perfect bodies I've ever seen, with broad shoulders tapering to a tidy waist. It's interesting to me that simply interacting with him was enough - all I really wanted to do was be in his company and have him acknowledge me. I didn't want a grand passion, and I didn't want to somehow lure him into bed (because as an overthinker, I knew that all those sorts of ideas would result in trouble for all. I was never one to let my horses run away with me, no matter how much I'd rather just let them go.) As a girl who went through all of high school as a wallflower, I desperately craved some sort of male attention, and I was now getting it in a healthy situation. I adored my sensai as well, because he was kind and funny and was a tall, gawky-looking man who nonetheless moved like a cat, quick and precise and elegant.
We left the Philippines a few months after I started, and life seemed to rush by too quickly. Twelve years passed before I realized that I was missing something that I needed to find again. I had made several attempts to find a dojo that I liked, but things always felt wrong. The other students seemed to be on a different wavelength, or the sensai was smarmy and wore purple mesh tank tops with tigerstripe pants instead of a gi. A couple of months ago, I was feeling restless and sad, and dug out my list of nearby dojos, and ended up driving out to one in Maryland. And it was like stepping back in time to that perfect place, when I was sixteen years old and glorying in using my body and sweating and falling, only to get back up again.
I love this dojo, but it's terribly far away - a forty-five minute drive. But it has a sister dojo in an odd little community center that's much closer. I mean to go to it this Monday, hoping it has the same atmosphere of friendliness and dicipline. There's a thick, tight tension in my chest that needs to be broken up, and it happens when I'm kneeling on a mat, making my bows, anticipating.
It turned into one of the best things I had ever done for myself. I found myself doing things I had never expected; my cumbersome body was starting to become fluid. I learned how to fall. I learned how a small turn of my wrist could be the difference between success and failure. I cherished the long callus on my foot that came from working on the mats, because it was proof that I was part of this community of students. I adored weapons practice, working through katas in the still-lingering heat of Manila's early evening. I grew to love the smell of my own sweat, honestly earned.
On a completely shallow side note, few students with a crush on their teacher ever got to grapple with him and fall to a mat with him on top of you. Or see him naked to the waist, with his tan back above and snowy white gi pants below - he had one of the most perfect bodies I've ever seen, with broad shoulders tapering to a tidy waist. It's interesting to me that simply interacting with him was enough - all I really wanted to do was be in his company and have him acknowledge me. I didn't want a grand passion, and I didn't want to somehow lure him into bed (because as an overthinker, I knew that all those sorts of ideas would result in trouble for all. I was never one to let my horses run away with me, no matter how much I'd rather just let them go.) As a girl who went through all of high school as a wallflower, I desperately craved some sort of male attention, and I was now getting it in a healthy situation. I adored my sensai as well, because he was kind and funny and was a tall, gawky-looking man who nonetheless moved like a cat, quick and precise and elegant.
We left the Philippines a few months after I started, and life seemed to rush by too quickly. Twelve years passed before I realized that I was missing something that I needed to find again. I had made several attempts to find a dojo that I liked, but things always felt wrong. The other students seemed to be on a different wavelength, or the sensai was smarmy and wore purple mesh tank tops with tigerstripe pants instead of a gi. A couple of months ago, I was feeling restless and sad, and dug out my list of nearby dojos, and ended up driving out to one in Maryland. And it was like stepping back in time to that perfect place, when I was sixteen years old and glorying in using my body and sweating and falling, only to get back up again.
I love this dojo, but it's terribly far away - a forty-five minute drive. But it has a sister dojo in an odd little community center that's much closer. I mean to go to it this Monday, hoping it has the same atmosphere of friendliness and dicipline. There's a thick, tight tension in my chest that needs to be broken up, and it happens when I'm kneeling on a mat, making my bows, anticipating.
