So after about 8 years off from my initial Aikido training I've decided to resume it again at age 38. After about 1-2 years of initial training my work schedule changed and I began to travel every week. I was always out of town on the nights of class and had to let it go. I've been had a great desire to get back into training but until something changed with my work schedule that just wasn't going to happen. Why pay for classes that I would never be able to attend? Thankfully my work schedule is finally changing and will allow me to travel only rarely. I decided to start this blog as a way for me to record my thoughts and experiences of training again after all this time. Am I too old to start this again after the past 8 years of constant travel piloting a desk?
I initially trained in Shin Shin Toitsu Aikido at the Midland Ki Society under Vic Montgomery Sensei (3rd Dan) while I lived in Kansas City. Training opportunities are a lot more limited in Kansas City than they are in Seattle. Although the dojo was a small one, the people who trained there were great people and I really enjoyed spending several nights a week in their company. I was only 5th kyu at the time that I left the dojo but I was really enjoying the training and the people there.
In August of this year I moved from KC to Seattle and had been considering resuming training again knowing that there were several of the top instructers in the US located in and around the area. After much consideration I have chosen to resume my training at Aikido Eastside in Bellevue, WA under the much esteemed George Ledyard Sensei (6th Dan). I first became familiar with Ledyard Sensei back in 2000 from his posts on various Aikido websites and forums and learned how highly respected he is within the Aikido community. Aikido Eastside is a member of the Aikido Schools of Ueshiba (ASU) founded by Mitsugi Saotome Sensei which is a different school of Aikido than the Ki Society. I'll explain the philosophy of each of the schools in a later post.
For those people who are unfamiliar or are curious about Aikido, I'll go into a brief history and explination of it in a future post as well. For now, the main thing to understand at this point is that Aikido is a modern Japanese martial art that is performed by blending with the motion of the attacker and redirecting the force of the attack rather than opposing it head-on.
This blog is basically for my own personal use and to record my personal thoughts and experiences as I begin training again. I don't claim to represent the views of anyone other than myself with any of my postings. Hell, Randy Couture is in his 40's and still fights in the UFC. I'm just doing a little lite training compared to that right?
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