In my Aikido classes, from day one, in addition to teaching waza, I emphasize learning how to replace physical feelings of stress, fear, and anger with calm alertness and compassionate power. One of my students, who had been practicing about a month, told me about his aiki moment:
I went to Wal-Mart, me and my wife. I was coming out, and I noticed this lady driving down the lane. She wasn’t stopping, and I pulled my wife back. The lady almost hit my wife, and just went by, didn’t even look our way. I shouted out, “You jerk!” I didn’t mean to say that, but I did. Her son was standing behind us, and he said “ That’s my mother you’re calling a jerk, (insert here an incendiary racial epithet I’m unwilling to print).” I thought about what he said, and I thought about Paul and the classes I’m taking, and I kept my control. By that time the lady drove back, and I said to her “I apologize for what I said,” and we kept right on walking. The guy looked at me kind of puzzled. The lady even looked at me puzzled. We got in our car, went on home, nobody went to jail, nobody went to the hospital. My wife even gave me a high five, saying “I never saw you do that before, I’m very proud of you.”
I’d like to end with a request. I would like to write a book titled Accidental Perfection: Moments when Aikido Training Works. It would be a compilation of experiences in which Aikido training clicks into place and allows one to function with unaccustomed ease and effectiveness in some area of life. I would appreciate it if people could send me one or two page descriptions of their Aiki experiences. (I can read German and French, but English is much easier.) PaulLinden@aol.com
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