I am a man who will fight for your honor: The Aikido Adult

A few weeks ago we started taking aikido lessons.  We went to observe one class to make up our minds, and it was impressive – like a ballet about aggressive people who never forget their manners.  Lots of fluid sidestepping and deliberate tumbling.  It’s how I wish I could recover when I trip over something – just slide right into this polished somersault and pop out of it with my hands in karate attack stance, ready to fuck that curb up if it tries any more funny stuff.

I can’t say it’s going so hot.  The teacher insisted that we jump in with the advanced students, so we can be exposed to as much as possible, and so we will (in his hopes) fall in love with it.  The aikido though, she plays hard to get!

Class consists of a series of demonstrations and then partner work to practice the techniques.  Unfortunately, I get all tense and utterly blank out when the instructors are demonstrating a new move in anticipation of having to do it myself.  I wish I had a little cop in my brain who would cuff my attention and drag it back by the ear when it tries to play truant during these critical moments.

Picture watching a video, where someone’s demonstrating how to make an origami praying mantis, which is consuming an octopus.  The video is in Swedish and being played at half volume.  You get to watch the video twice, and then someone hands you some paper and you have to make one of your own.  Oh what, you can’t do it?

Part of the problem is one of language.  I know distinct lexicons, and I have a little library of dialogues from classes long ago, like an exchange between cosmonauts in orbit (“Falcon, it’s me — Golden Eagle.”), or when it’s zoo day for young Pioneers (“Don’t feed the camel!”) or when Kolya and Misha get together to listen to their record albums.  Or an entire one-sided conversation I scripted in advance when confronting a landlord in St. Petersburg about the roach infestation in my apartment.  But I don’t really know sportsy vocabularies, all sorts of action verbs and prepositions.  So all I catch is “Now [verb] your foot [direction].  No, no verb it direction.  No, that’s not right.  Now verb it this way.  Okay your hand should verb there, feel the difference?”

In addition to this frustration of simply not getting it, advanced aikido for beginners is hard on the ego.  When we split into pairs, I know I should be more aggressive about seeking someone out, but I turn into the wallflower at softball picks.  The last man scrambling for a partner looks around before confirming that – ugh – he has to practice with me.

Next class I’m showing up drunk.

There are some upsides.  I strongly like the outfit.  There’s something very democratic about it.  And dressing the part gives me an extra helping of confidence.  Also, I like how the point is to not hurt yourself and not hurt the other person.  I am taking this to extremes with my partners in class, who repeatedly tell me to verb them harder.  Must break myself of the urge to apologize when I actually land one on the mat.

At the end of the day, I feel like it’s good to be doing something that’s hard, something that makes me really uncomfortable both physically and emotionally.  To keep my bushwhacking in that territory up to speed.

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