shodan
Sunday, August 10th, 2008
I tested for shodan in aikido a few months ago. That’s first-degree (lowest-ranked) black belt. The first aikido class I ever went to was in Spartanburg, South Carolina. 1994, I think. (Thanks, Dad!) There were a couple of years around 2000 where I wasn’t really training, but still, that’s about 12 years of fairly consistent aikido for me. It’s been non-stop since 2002, and I’ve been with Boulder Aikikai since 2003.
That’s not me in the photo, by the way. That’s Karl and Tracy, both of whom are bad ass, and quite senior to me. They’re in front of Mt Sopris, at Boulder Aikikai’s Annual Summer Camp in the Rockies, which was two weeks ago. I’ll post a few more photos here as soon as I get Lightroom working on my laptop again.
So the black belt feels a little overdue in some ways, but not so much in others. I am glad for the recognition, and I do feel qualified to, say, teach beginners the basic open-hand stuff and ukemi. But I was chatting with a friend in the dojo today about how aikido is an apparently bottomless rabbit hole. You think you’re making progress and that you know a thing or two, then you run into someone with whom your little tricks and techniques utterly fail. “OK,” you think to yourself. “I know nothing.”
Or, you train with people who work with levels of effortlessness, grace, and power you know are possible, but still beyond your own practice.
Either way, new expanses of unexplored terrain open before you. That happens a lot. It’s why we keep coming back. It keeps raising questions about body/mind/awareness/relationship/spirit/etc/etc. Also, it’s a lot of fun. And you meet some of the best people: beautiful, funny, strong, caring, flawed. And so on …
Anyway, I think I’ll be doing this thing for a while. Here’s to another 12, 24, 30, or 40 years of training …*