Was I or Wasn't I?

Am I over-thinking? Did I have a good class last night or not? I thought I did. Our chief instructor was there. We started by practicing blows: Shomen-uchi, Yokomen-uchi, Tsuki. This is the first Aikido dojo I've attended where we end tsuki with our fist held sideways. Yes, I understand why, but since no one on earth punches that way, I'm not sure why we do it that way, other than to have us perform our techniques in a certain way.

Then practiced techniques that utilized those strikes. We did irimi nage against shomen uchi. We did forms of ikkyo and gokyo against yokomen uchi, then did a kokyu nage where we held uke by the wrist and elbow of the same arm and entered deeply thereby taking uke down into a back fall, a back roll, or a break fall. We used tonto on the last one.

It all felt pretty good. I worked with Joe (1st kyu) on the irimi nage. I worked with our "regular" instructor on the ikkyo and gokyo, and finally, with a beginner on the kokyu nage.

I was going to say something to our regular instructor after class about how I see myself improving, but then I saw him talking to Joe. They were sort of buddy-buddy, talking about how good their time working together was; how intense of a workout it was. At that point I stopped short. I know my work was good, but it wasn't up to the standards that a nidan or an ikkyu would consider acceptable.

And I guess that's the point: I know I'm improving. I've been told so by a shodan and Joe (the ikkyu), but the road ahead is still long and winding. I cannot see any end in sight. I am 174 hours away from taking my nikkyu test (2nd kyu). At the rate I'm working, I'll test for nikkyu in March of 2012. I feel the baby-step improvements, but that's small comfort when the road ahead has no end in sight. This is the way of Aikido.

I'm sure Thursday will be better.