Feeling Good About my Aikido Test

Tonight I had a great Aikido class. Normally I don't go to evening class - 6am before work for me, but I was supposed to see the head instructor at least once more before my test, and he normally teaches Monday nights. He didn't show up tonight probably because of the bus strike mayhem, so class was taught by one of the 4th dans at the dojo. A lady (G.) whose class I have yet to attend - so it was a real treat for me.

On Wednesday evening I'll be testing for 5th and 4th kyu. It's been over 4 years now and I have not yet chosen to test, so I have some catching up to do. If all goes well on Wednesday, I'll be testing again in February or March for 3rd kyu. Then I'll almost be caught up.

Tonight I had a couple of really great feel-good moments. As is typical at our dojo when someone is testing, they get sent off to the side of the mat during regular class, to work on test material with a constant supply of ukes - or attackers/partners. The instructor G. sent me off to the side and asked for 2 black-belt volunteers to work on my test material with me. She then instructs regular class and goes back and forth to the side of the mat where I am to comment on my techniques and offer tips and hints where required. One of my feel-good moments was when I was demonstrating a 4th kyu technique - Ushiro Tekubitori Sankyo, where the attacker tries to grab both of your arms behind you. Immediately prior to this we'd been doing a different technique and she'd found lots to comment and lots of tips and hints to give me. Then we moved to this technique, and it was in particular when I was demonstrating the Ura (to the back side of the attacker, vs Omote - to the front side) technique when I had the moment. Just after she'd done a considerable amount of correction on my previous technique, I performed the aforementioned Ushiro Tekubitori Sankyo Ura, and when I completed it, I immediately looked up at her for comment. A huge smile came across her face and she just shook her head back and forth - completely silent. I knew that what she'd meant was that I'd done the technique near perfectly and there was no need for comment on it. YES! Now if only I can pull off another one of those on Wednesday night for the head instructor, during my test. Because they don't come often.

The next feel-good moment came during the cool-down at the end of class. She'd called back those of us testing to re-join the main group, and I ended up teamed up with a 2nd dan M. who teaches the kids classes for Isaac and Solomon. He'a really great guy with tremendous technique. We were doing a kokyu exercise in standing. Uke grabs nages both wrists, and then Nage manipulates uke into an off-balance position using kokyu (breath power). After we'd been doing this for a good number of minutes, M. commented to me "really great breathing". Wow! Proper breathing is really my achilles heal, and it's so VITAL in Aikido. In fact the main reason I started taking Kundalini Yoga is so that I could learn better breathing for Aikido - Kundalini is afterall breathy yoga, not bendy yoga. It's obviously been doing me some good! But the missing piece of the puzzle here is that W. my regular instructor for Morning Class is always chewing me out for my crappy breathing. And I know that it's normally really, really crappy. Normally I'm sucking wind. But it's obviously getting there! The Yoga is really working out for me. I just hope I can do as well on Wednesday night because I can't always do so well.

So away we go. Less than 2 days now til my test. I'm not nervous yet, and I'm hoping I won't be. It's a philosophical thing for me. Part of the reason I haven't yet chosen to test is that I always believed I should not test until I could do so without being nervous. Part of the purpose of Aikido is afterall to master the primal human emotions and instincts - fear being one of them. It always seemed to me to be ironic to be nervous during a test. It goes back to the old Samurai saying of "Today is a good day to die" (yes, I know the Klingons said that too, but Roddenbury got it from the Samurai). The meaning I get from it is that if you prepare for the worst but hope for the best, there is no need to be nervous. In the case of the Samurai, worst case was they would end up dead. And as long as they were prepared for death, there was nothing to worry. My fate should be considerably better than that in the worst case - at least in the short term of course. I'm prepared to completely and totally bomb my test and make a fool of myself. If that's the worst that happens to me on Wednesday night then I'm faring far better than my Samurai forebearers.

We shall see how it goes ...