{"id":83,"date":"2008-02-25T18:08:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-25T18:08:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dev.wpdude.com\/test\/?p=83"},"modified":"2008-02-25T18:08:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-25T18:08:00","slug":"an-ugly-aikido-black-belt-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/2008\/02\/an-ugly-aikido-black-belt-test\/","title":{"rendered":"An Ugly Aikido Black-Belt Test"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/strong><\/a> So I did my black belt aikido<\/span> test again* this weekend. Overall I wasn’t at all happy with my performance which was ugly, lacked grace, flow and sensitivity.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On the plus side I adapted to some large boys who were surprise partners for me, dealt with the stress of some last-minute complications and was marked well on “spirit” and “manner and attitude” perhaps the most important aspects of an aikido<\/span> test. The really nice thing was doing it at Renshinkan<\/span> <\/a>, which despite travels to aikido<\/span> schools far and wide, will always be home<\/em> and hold a part of my heart (and several pints of blood, sweat and tears).\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So why having passed and received compliments and congratulations from peers and mentors do I feel like crap? Because I know I didn’t do my best? Yes, and more than that, because pass or fail doing a beautiful test was the most important thing for me. I imagine the word “beautiful” is not one strongly associated with martial arts for most people, but this was the adjective my late teacher used when describing good aikido<\/span>. Aikido<\/span> has an ethical, connective and aesthetic dimension when it’s fully realised, anything less is not really aikido<\/span> but shoving people around with muscle and trickery. Immediately after the test I trained with my old dojo<\/span>-mate Polish Pete as a cool down. “Ah, now you’re doing your aikido<\/span> again, what happened?” \"\"<\/a>he said to me. What he was calling my aikido<\/span> is to me precisely the <\/a>opposite, ego-free relaxed,<\/span> pure movement aikido<\/span> not concerned with fighting or achieving<\/span> results. During the test Mark and passing were in the way of this grace. You could say that under the stress of the exam I went down several levels of functioning, not so much in technical terms, but in this essential aikido<\/span> nature. During the test I was on the surface quite calm, but after was stiff and tired, unusual for me, and despite being put through my paces disproportionate<\/span> to the exercise.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the devil of aikido<\/span>, is it asks us not just to cope, but to soar beyond prosaic reactions, then puts the precisely the kind of pressure on us that makes us sink into our baser nature. <\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The better test now may be what I do about all this? I’ll start by thanking all my aikido<\/span> instructors over the years and those who helped me in the run-up to this episode. Cheers folks. Beyond that I just don’t know.<\/p>\n

\"\"
*The first time was in Brazil over a year ago. I passed but couldn’t afford the registration fee, which is set in Japan and the same for people in every country, irrespective of standards of living.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So I did my black belt aikido test again* this weekend. Overall I wasn’t at all happy with my performance which was ugly, lacked grace, flow and sensitivity. On the plus side I adapted to some large boys who were surprise partners for me, dealt with the stress of some last-minute complications and was marked well on “spirit” and “manner and attitude” perhaps the most important aspects of an aikido test. The really nice thing was doing it at Renshinkan , which despite travels to aikido schools far and wide, will always be home and hold a part of my <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9xvDN-1l","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.integrationtraining.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}