be the singing-master of my soul
Jul. 29th, 2010 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sienamysticSecond aikido class today, so I won't be back until next Wednesday, most like. I'll have to figure out my schedule - aikido days, gym days, yadda yadda. It's kind of amazing how much I remember. I mean, it's not like I'm wandering out onto the mat and flawlessly throwing people over my hip, but things are feeling right much faster. When I say I last studied aikido twenty years ago, I'm not exaggerating for effect. We were in the Philippines my junior year of high school, and it was a very strange year, full of anxiety for me about school (I was in some classes harder than I could handle, and didn't realize for a few months that I could drop them and change) and my parents, I think, were probably fighting more openly and obviously. It was probably the first time that I experienced the sort of thing that traumatizes a lot of third culture kids - an active dislocation from my home culture and support system. Before, I had no really intimate friends, and as long as I had my books I was pretty much ok. Sure, I had a passel of cousins who I had known since I was a wee babe, but things were still difficult.
So of course, being a dislocated teenager flailing around, I went the natural route and developed a head-over-heels, full-on, probably blushing at inopportune moments crush on a math teacher of mine. He was a lanky California type (although he may not actually have been from there) who wore flattering and trendy but not trying too hard clothes and great ties, and had a fantastic body from doing things like swimming six miles before breakfast. He was funny, and kind, and a good teacher. He was the one who told me about the aikido class, held in a dojo on the ground of the Polo Club. (Our class followed a kendo group, and I almost took kendo just so I could get the gear. Damn, that shit is cool.)
So martial arts being what they are, there was a lot of sweating, and grappling, and throwing. It was Manila, we had no air conditioning, just giant fans to blow the warm air around. Your feet squeak on the mats, and you get callouses. You get intimate with people. You're pressed up against their back, holding their collar, pulling their head against your shoulder, clinging tightly to their wrists. There's a reason why fighting=foreplay is such a potent thing for me, and that's because being an awkward teenager rolling around on the floor with the object of your crush, smelling him, having his sweat on your lip because you just pulled him backwards before you tossed him across your hip, well...that's enough to mark you. The smell of sweat, of bodies in healthy exertion, is a massive turn-on for me.
I remember one day, coming into class. We didn't have changing rooms, and my teacher was standing with his back to me, his white gi pants in stark contrast to his tanned bare back. He had...a really great back. It was that perfect taper, shoulders to waist. I actually stood there, thunderstruck, for a few long beats. It was the croquet mallet of Eros, slamming into my forehead.
I'm not leading into a story about how one day, he drove me home and got all Don't Stand So Close To Me-y, or anything. The year ended, my mom and dad's issues caused us to leave the Philippines early to go back to Virginia. I tried to find a new dojo, but the good ones were too far away, and the ones nearby were crappy and macho in a way I hated. (Most of the ones I tried were aikido and also judo and ju-jitsu and twelve other martial arts under one roof. I think I already knew that wouldn't work for me.) One instructor wore tiger-striped purple pants. I drifted out of aikido. I tried a few other things - broadsword and shield fighting in the SCA, which was fun, but I didn't have money for armor. And there was an attempt at yoga which didn't take.
I could be jumping the gun. My free month may go by and I may not be able to scrape together the money to keep going. (It's $68/month, unlimited classes, I have discovered.) But for the first time in twenty freaking years, I'm back on the mat again, fumbling my way through something until it clicks, and my hips pivot, and I swing the correct foot around and my partner falls sweetly to the mat. I'll likely be missing the intense focus that relief from misery can bring, and I'm assuming there won't be an erotic charge beyond the basic one of bodies in intimate space working together. But perhaps those six or so months in Manila, finding a space for myself on the mat, finding some sort of family with the people I trained with, were special enough to me that years later, my body still remembers the language I used to speak.
So of course, being a dislocated teenager flailing around, I went the natural route and developed a head-over-heels, full-on, probably blushing at inopportune moments crush on a math teacher of mine. He was a lanky California type (although he may not actually have been from there) who wore flattering and trendy but not trying too hard clothes and great ties, and had a fantastic body from doing things like swimming six miles before breakfast. He was funny, and kind, and a good teacher. He was the one who told me about the aikido class, held in a dojo on the ground of the Polo Club. (Our class followed a kendo group, and I almost took kendo just so I could get the gear. Damn, that shit is cool.)
So martial arts being what they are, there was a lot of sweating, and grappling, and throwing. It was Manila, we had no air conditioning, just giant fans to blow the warm air around. Your feet squeak on the mats, and you get callouses. You get intimate with people. You're pressed up against their back, holding their collar, pulling their head against your shoulder, clinging tightly to their wrists. There's a reason why fighting=foreplay is such a potent thing for me, and that's because being an awkward teenager rolling around on the floor with the object of your crush, smelling him, having his sweat on your lip because you just pulled him backwards before you tossed him across your hip, well...that's enough to mark you. The smell of sweat, of bodies in healthy exertion, is a massive turn-on for me.
I remember one day, coming into class. We didn't have changing rooms, and my teacher was standing with his back to me, his white gi pants in stark contrast to his tanned bare back. He had...a really great back. It was that perfect taper, shoulders to waist. I actually stood there, thunderstruck, for a few long beats. It was the croquet mallet of Eros, slamming into my forehead.
I'm not leading into a story about how one day, he drove me home and got all Don't Stand So Close To Me-y, or anything. The year ended, my mom and dad's issues caused us to leave the Philippines early to go back to Virginia. I tried to find a new dojo, but the good ones were too far away, and the ones nearby were crappy and macho in a way I hated. (Most of the ones I tried were aikido and also judo and ju-jitsu and twelve other martial arts under one roof. I think I already knew that wouldn't work for me.) One instructor wore tiger-striped purple pants. I drifted out of aikido. I tried a few other things - broadsword and shield fighting in the SCA, which was fun, but I didn't have money for armor. And there was an attempt at yoga which didn't take.
I could be jumping the gun. My free month may go by and I may not be able to scrape together the money to keep going. (It's $68/month, unlimited classes, I have discovered.) But for the first time in twenty freaking years, I'm back on the mat again, fumbling my way through something until it clicks, and my hips pivot, and I swing the correct foot around and my partner falls sweetly to the mat. I'll likely be missing the intense focus that relief from misery can bring, and I'm assuming there won't be an erotic charge beyond the basic one of bodies in intimate space working together. But perhaps those six or so months in Manila, finding a space for myself on the mat, finding some sort of family with the people I trained with, were special enough to me that years later, my body still remembers the language I used to speak.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-30 04:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-30 04:45 am (UTC)I've probably obligated my brain to spew out fighting=foreplay stories for every possible pairing I ship, now. All this spelunking in one's erotic dictionary needs to result in something useful!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-30 12:24 pm (UTC)I hope you're able to scrape up the cash to keep going--$68/month for unlimited classes strikes me as a very reasonable sum, you obviously enjoy it, and it will give you a nice break from the gym, too.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-30 01:29 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-30 12:50 pm (UTC)As for this: One instructor wore tiger-striped purple pants. I don't know what to say, except I can easily picture this type of person. I'm seeing a mullet. :D
I hope you can continue. $68 for unlimited classes is pretty cool. If karate had been unlimited, I may have stayed, but $100 for 2 days/week was insane. Ah well. Anyway, maybe you can volunteer in some capacity for $ off. I know some people at my old karate dojo did that.
~Kate-h
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-30 01:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-30 09:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-02 01:26 am (UTC)