Lately I've noticed a few thing changing. I've been lot more
relaxed in the past days than I have for a long time. It's most noticeable in my
aikido class. It's not that my technique has changed all that much, but that I'm starting to feel
a change in how I learn there. It's more with my body now, starting to understand
technique not as a sequence of movements to be executed, but as a continuous awareness of one's own body. Only once in my life have I felt more relaxed than this.
It was maybe a year ago, maybe a little more, little less. I went home, to
North Carolina for a weekend. My girlfriend at the time went with me, and we had a pretty nice weekend. I hung out with my
old friends that I always miss so much. My
brother, my mom. Didn't do a whole lot, didn't worry about school much. On the trip back, I stopped to pick up my younger stepsister (by about 10 years), who had been visiting her father in
Greensboro. She rode back with us, and I dropped her off in
Virgina where my father and stepmom live. The ride back was really nice for some reason. We were in my dad's pickup. I was carrying furniture and
bits of nostalgia that mom had donated to my apartment. All the storage space was crammed full, and the three of us sat on the bench seat together. I drove, my girlfriend sat in the middle. It drizzled and
rained most of the way back, the radio accompanied by the gentle swish of the windshield wipers.
The three of us talked quietly, easily most of the way back. I dropped of my girlfriend to visit her parents in
Richmond, my stepsister a little further on, and drove the rest of the way into
Maryland in the quiet, dark rain. I got home, and at some point made the slow realization that I had somehow fallen through
the layer of static that usually clouds my brain.
For once, I had nothing to say, nothing to think to myself, because everything was cool the way it was. For nearly a week, anytime something came up, I just accepted it, and adapted to it.
Everything was simple, beautiful, easy. I had an aikido class a couple of days after I got back. I had been kinda
frustrated in the
dojo lately. It was a new dojo for me, and the techniques done differently enough to throw me off a bit. But this time, I came in, and I didn't really care about that. I wasn't worried about doing the techniques precisely right. I just wanted to train. Every technique I did that night went more smoothly, more easily than any other time I had done it. My
ukemi was better than it had ever been in my entire life. And
I was never really surprised by this. Like everything else, I recognized it, and accepted it, and just went on doing what was natural. After the class my instructor asked if I was going to be able to come to class more often. (I had been busy with school a lot) He said something to the effect of "You've got a lot of potential" I don't remember the exact words, but it was close to that. Now, my instuctors aikido is incredible. He's got the best technique I've ever seen, and he doesn't hand out compliments like that frequently. So it was pretty cool to hear him say that, but it didn't affect me the way it might have otherwise. I didn't think about it too much. It was what it was. I smiled and said I was going to be in as much as I could, and just went on
floating in that deep, silent sea of relaxation, somewhere below the layer of
static that I eventually shifted back to a week or so later.
So I have been there, I know what it is I'm looking for, what I'm after as a daily part of my life. The steps back aren't as large as the ones I took in that strange weekend, but they are getting me there, and
I can't wait to see what I find when I finally get home again.