Sensei called out the first technique to be demonstrated on the test. Mike Boeckman listened to the long Japanese phrase. He drew in a slow, collected breath much like a lion targeting its hors d’oeuvres among a distant wildebeest herd. He offered his wrist to the uke who promptly grabbed it in an attack.
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I felt dismayed. In the midst of preparing for my first aikido test—consisting of 10 techniques—I made the mistake of asking one of the black belts what you had to do for the shodan (1st degree black belt) test. Before the next class, he approached me with a sly grin and handed me a ream of papers. As I scanned them, my heart sank. 292 techniques, around 10 solo and paired jo and a dozen bokken kata (choreographed forms done with wooden staff and sword). And after all that, in a rite of passage called randori, a mob is sent rushing at you and you’re expected to somehow survive.
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“Turn off your mind
Relax and float downstream
It is not dying
It is not dying”
I was 13 and the sound coming through my AM radio was like nothing I’d ever heard. Some Indian drone instrument crescendoed to an in-your-face repeating drum riff pounding like a cart with a missing wheel careening down a cobblestone hill chased by a flock of electric seagulls. Strange snatches of orchestral dream music, backwards guitars, buzz saws, and ‘what-the-hell-is-that-sound-anyway?’ came randomly into the mix, then vanished away, until finally fading into the strains of an untuned piano in an English music hall.
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We are living in a time of great change. Change comes with uncertainty. For many people, uncertainty creates anxiety. We can’t eliminate these factors from life, so how do we accept change, uncertainty, and anxiety with grace?
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“The mountain lion was hunting and running towards me as I came around a corner,” Taylor explained.
He too was hunting when the animal encounter occurred. In the lavender blush of dusk, he spooked a couple elk herds, which in turn, may have prompted the mountain lion to investigate.
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Ahhh. There’s nothing like a good sword-slinger movie set in a historic and/or fanciful Asian world. Any Kurosawa film belongs on the list. My favorites include Seven Samurai, Red Beard, and After the Rain. I also love Hero, The Twilight Samurai, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, House of Flying Daggers. And then there’s my very long list of to-be-watched films! Shinobi: Heart Under Blade, the Rurouni Kenshin series, The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi to name a few.
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Durango Shin Budo Kai Aikido focused on building a robust financial backbone throughout 2019. The dojo achieved this outcome by networking with the community, nurturing our own internal processes, always developing our practitioners, investing in board member training, and building a plan for the future. Our end goal: secure our own practice space.
Even as we ready for a new year and new decade, check out our growth (and fun!) over the last 300+ days.
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I dreamed that I stood on the ledge of a tall building, 40 floors up. I stepped casually off the ledge and fell, remaining upright, hands by my side, as though I were just standing on a street corner.
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