Not knowing exactly what to write about I jotted down a few subject headings and chose ‘training’ as it seemed to flow more easily onto the paper – so here’s a start anyway.
I started training at the age of about 16 after seeing a poster in my brothers school at a parents evening, my father has been fan of action and martial arts films for ages, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan the terrible old Ninja movies of the 80′s Ninja boom. I guess I became a fan too – Jean-Claude Van Damme, Steven Seagal were my era.
The poster I saw was for an Aikido class, I probably really sucked at my first lesson – I enjoyed it though and I still do, I’ve continued to train and love it to this day. I left my Aikido club when I went to University and unfortunately our head Sensei died around that same time. It was a great shame, I can’t say I really knew him as a person but in the Dojo he had a wonderful light and gentle way of moving which generated a lot of power. You’d see bigger stronger people training and throwing their partners around but he did it with no effort or strength.
I failed my first grading, proper failure I only had to do about 5 techniques to get my yellow belt including a few ‘Ki’ tests where you had to keep good posture and centre yourself. I was sooooo nervous at being there and being in from of the head teacher that I went all to pieces – it profoundly effected me, I couldn’t stand being that nervous or scared and I really couldn’t stand being in that situation. I guess looking back now I could have quit but I really didn’t want to give up that easily, so I started going to the head teacher’s class too – in addition to the other one. I passed the next grading easily. I gained a lot of confidence that day and it probably started me on a path I’ve walked ever since. Still training, still learning…..
HG
