I never saw a wild thing

sorry for itself.

A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough

without ever having felt sorry for itself.

— D.H.Lawrence

by Ea Murphy

Within the first year of training in AikidoThe word "Aikido" is made up of three japanese characters: ai - harmony, ki - spirit, mind, or universal energy, do - the way. Thus Aikido is "the way of harmony with universal energy." I made the decision that I would keep practicing for the rest of my life. That innocent decision, naïve in what it would actually entail, provided relief from the constant judgment of progress and attainment. I could train as much as I wanted without worrying about whether or not I was achieving martial skill, about whether my innate abilities were enough to “really” do Aikido, or about whether my training would actually prove useful in the “real world”. I would, I reasoned, be doing this for decades, surely at that point I would understand something about Aikido.

As I enter into my 18th year of training, I find myself searching for the many seemingly small components of AikidoThe word "Aikido" is made up of three japanese characters: ai - harmony, ki - spirit, mind, or universal energy, do - the way. Thus Aikido is "the way of harmony with universal energy." techniques. One of these components is the use of atemiDiverting, defensive strike or blow. In my opinion, atemi has become one of the lost components of Aikido. But you may ask yourself, what is atemi and is it really part of Aikido?

Through the years, I have often wondered what it would have been like to grow up a young boy in Japan. Playing samurai, beating my playmates with limbs cut from trees. Becoming an uchiInside deshiStudent, pupil, disciple to a Great Teacher and learning Kendo, Judo and maybe even AikidoThe word "Aikido" is made up of three japanese characters: ai - harmony, ki - spirit, mind, or universal energy, do - the way. Thus Aikido is "the way of harmony with universal energy.". Carrying O-SenseiGreat teacher; the founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba’s bags, cleaning his home, working in his fields, and taking ukemiThe art of receiving or taking actions as uke, falling for years before he would let me practice. Having peers like Tohei, Abe, Saito, Yamada, Kanai and Chiba.

Summer. The beginners’ course is eight weeks long. It has been years since I’ve done anything remotely physical not counting my weekend warrior yard work. I have wanted to take a martial arts course for years and I finally stumbled across BCA while surfing the internet. There were other schools, schools that were closer to home yet I felt compelled to come, observe a class and then sign-up.