{"id":1480,"date":"2017-01-16T01:12:18","date_gmt":"2017-01-16T06:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/?p=1480"},"modified":"2017-01-17T17:23:15","modified_gmt":"2017-01-17T22:23:15","slug":"new-found-community-and-warrior-spirit-discovered-through-aikido-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/?p=1480","title":{"rendered":"New Found Community and Warrior Spirit Discovered Through Aikido Training"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

By Brooke Cannon Grass Valley Aikikai<\/a><\/p>\n

I moved to the west coast over a year ago to work with goats. I was way up in the mountains in a secluded area hoping that I might have found my home there. But as life would have it, I was led to the little town of Grass Valley where I\u2019ve been living now since last April. <\/p>\n

I still feel quite new to the community here in Grass Valley. I dove right in though, with joining an Aikido class in September. I thought it would just be learning a martial art! What a surprise it was to me, that it\u2019s a little community all on it\u2019s own.\u00a0An awesome mixture of some women close to my age, kids ranging from 7 to 12, older adults with hearts as big as Texas, and the kick ass 20 somethings that make everything look easy.<\/p>\n

\"Practicing<\/a>
Practicing good form, ukemi, and mai-ai, while learning Shihonage.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our dojo just had some young ones test for their orange belt two days ago – two young men and two young ladies. After our Sensei told us to be serious and not to laugh or smile, I watched as their little faces put on a \u201cwarrior face\u201d. \u201cPretend as if you\u2019re going into battle,\u201d she said.\u00a0I have to say it was hard for me not to smile while watching those young people try so hard to show their parents, who were sitting in the corner watching them, what they know.\u00a0I was even feeling proud!<\/p>\n

It was pretty humbling for me as well. I\u2019m still in the toddler stage when it comes to Aikido. So, when I was asked to be an uke (the \u201cbad guy\u201d, the attacker), I jumped up and prayed that I wouldn\u2019t be too ignorant or clumsy. I only messed up once (that I know of), at which time Sensei was very gracious and quick thinking to switch me out.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The young warriors awaiting their tests.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At one point during a technique, I was facing one of the little warriors, he had to look me in the eye.\u00a0I don\u2019t know if he was reflecting back to me what he saw, but I was truly impressed with his \u201cwarrior face\u201d.\u00a0All at once I could see the warrior spirit in him, that I\u2019m sure everyone has. Honestly, it almost brought me to tears. I can\u2019t really say why. I guess I\u2019d just seen him as a goofy, sweet, young man. \u00a0I don\u2019t mean that as an insult – (to those of you who might read this that may know who I\u2019m speaking about).<\/p>\n

Afterward, when the parents and kids were excitedly chatting, I walked up to the oldest young man who just finished testing. It was he who I had messed with during his test, but he looked at me and thanked me for being such a good uke, and he genuinely meant it. I told him I was sorry for messing up, but I could tell that he wasn\u2019t phased at all by it. He was gracious without even thinking about it. That\u2019s the kind of people I get to see three days a week. They keep helping me with the little things, like patience. They graciously correct and guide me through the simplest movements. Especially Sensei, who has probably repeated the meaning of \u201caihanmi\u201d to me, a thousand times by now (yes, that\u2019s tricky to spell, so I did have to look it up).<\/p>\n

Practicing Aikido is fulfilling my own warrior spirit in a way. I feel like I have one that needs to be expressed. Maybe most people do. I\u2019m learning new things about myself through this experience, even deeper than I\u2019d imagined. I have to admit, I\u2019m grateful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Brooke Cannon Grass Valley Aikikai I moved to the west coast over a year ago to work with goats. I was way up in the mountains in a secluded area hoping that I might have found my home there. But as life would have it, I was led to the little town of Grass … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “New Found Community and Warrior Spirit Discovered Through Aikido Training”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2RSKg-nS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1490,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions\/1490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}