Aikido Reflection from July 2009

Exhausted. And pleased. There is energy tingling in my hands and feet even while my core feels heavy. I am curious about how I am reacting, what sense to make of it, how to embrace this as an opportunity for learning. How to welcome this experience and learning to soften me and to become less self-absorbed?

Aikido was a big learning and a big test for me tonight. It was not a kyu exam but maybe it was a bigger and more important test than my anticipated brown belt test. Sensei threw an atemi in the form of verbal feedback. I noticed my habitual reaction to constrict and to become ashamed and self-judgmental when he told me that some students had left the dojo at least partially because of their reactions to my resistance. I was flooded by all of my old messages about doing it right and about being a problem and about “everyone” else talking about me without my awareness. And to make it all the worse, it was in reaction to my rigid, competitive, defensive, constricted habit patterns that I want so badly to change. Three years of practice and work in aikido and there was a sense of being back at square one. Will I ever change? Will I never change? All of that passed through my mind as my first instinctual response, my first instinctive defense.

But there was a difference tonight. I noticed. I was aware. I recognized a choice point. I could have closed down in self-criticism and discouragement. But I also had other choices available to me. I could allow myself to hear the rest of what Sensei was telling me and I could recognize that I was getting this feedback because I was ready to hear it, because I was becoming a senior student. Somehow I have come this far despite all of my obstacles and challenges. I also recognized and heard Sensei say that I am not really responsible for how those other students reacted and the choices they made. That was their learning and it was part of their test at the time. I was a student – I am a student of life – doing the best that I could at the time. I can’t expect any more of myself than that. I wear a white belt for a reason. It acts as a warning for others that I am a student (beware! Student driver behind the wheel) and it serves as a reminder to me that I am a student with a lot to learn. And in the dojo it is a reminder that it is Sensei’s responsibility to protect others from my blindness and lack of skill. I wish that I had a Sensei in all areas of life to offer such protection. But maybe life itself provides this. I am willing to declare my white belt and to open myself to learn; maybe I need to learn to trust life itself, my ultimate teacher, to provide the safety and container for learning.

So, as I observed my choices and watched the old patterns of reactivity, self-judgment and defensiveness flash before me, I also had enough presence to just let them go like the unsubstantial clouds of thought that arise in meditation. I could step aside and blend and not be devastated by the atemi. And I could watch time slow down, noticing the hole exposed in me by the atemi, noticing with appreciation the skill that Sensei used in delivering it and knowing that I was a worthy student, ready today for this lesson. I took one mental step, settled myself, took a breath and prepared myself for what was about to come next.

In teaching and demonstrating, I felt incompetent and awkward. I did not show all that I know and I clearly showed what I did not yet really know. Again, the temptation was to hold myself to a higher standard than I am at and to get down on myself for my not knowing and to want to resist and insist that I really do know it – even when my body gives another more clear message. But I have the choice of embodying a learner and of being patient with myself. I am recognizing that such patience is only possible when I recognize all that I have learned and when I trust that I will continue learning. Learning is my birthright and my life purpose. I will continue learning and I don’t need fight to make it happen. Learning, for me, is a process of relaxing and letting go and accepting. For someone else it might need to take the form of pushing and being strong but that is not the lesson that life wants me to learn.

I left the dojo tonight with my head high, my heart open and a smile on my face. I felt the life energy in me even as I recognized all the potential for falling (when fall, roll) into old patterns of inadequacy and self-judgment. But I realized that I had passed a test and demonstrated a skill that I have imagined and desired and which has often been lacking. Tonight I was surprised and so grateful to realize that the practices have paid off and that I have learned at least another level of skill. Life has bigger tests ahead for me, I know. And I know that my skill is still developing and that I have a long way to go and so many more skills to learn. But I will never return fully to the place of skilllessness. I will always have the gift of tonight’s lesson and test. I am so grateful!

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