{"id":1828,"date":"2017-11-17T10:04:33","date_gmt":"2017-11-17T15:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/?p=1828"},"modified":"2018-06-11T17:58:08","modified_gmt":"2018-06-11T21:58:08","slug":"womens-aikido-camp-an-experience-of-intensity-joy-and-sisterhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/?p=1828","title":{"rendered":"Women’s Aikido Camp: “An Experience of Intensity, Joy, and Sisterhood”"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

By Rosa Mitchell,\u00a0North County Aikikai<\/a><\/p>\n

Why did I go to Women\u2019s Aikido Camp? To be honest, I went mostly for the location. I looked\u00a0at the pictures of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Retreat Center, and thought a few days in\u00a0Santa Fe, New Mexico would be a well-deserved \u201cescapadita\u201d (little escape), as we say in my\u00a0family. Also, as a newbie, the idea of going to Summer Camp had just been too intimidating\u00a0and I thought that Women\u2019s Camp, with its smaller size, could serve as an introduction of\u00a0sorts: a way to jump in, but maybe not too deeply.<\/p>\n

We arrived at the retreat center with only a few minutes to spare before the first class. I\u00a0scrambled to get my gi on and rushed back to the gym. As all the women began to line up, we\u00a0were instructed by Varjan Sensei to do so in order of rank. This required us to talk to one\u00a0another to find our place. There was no need for this shy girl to talk to anyone. As a 5th kyu, I\u00a0just needed to go to the back at the end of the line, easy! When we all settled down, I looked\u00a0down the rows at all the women in hakama, and the enormity of the situation settled on me\u00a0and brought me to tears. The sound of all the female voices as we said our onegai shimasu in\u00a0unison filled the gym and filled me with an unexpected joy.<\/p>\n

\"FullSizeRender-19\"<\/a>
photo by Karen Hamilton<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In trying to describe why it was so different to train with only women, it is easy to jump to\u00a0stereotypes, all of which are completely inadequate to describe what I saw and experienced.\u00a0All these weeks later and I still haven\u2019t been able to put my finger on what the difference\u00a0was exactly, but I can say that I loved every minute. I can tell you that the encounters on the\u00a0mat were intense and sincere, but also filled with love and so much joy.<\/p>\n

Yes, the classes were amazing, but I haven\u2019t been to a seminar yet where that wasn\u2019t true.\u00a0So, what was different? Maybe it was just the opportunity to see what I can become. It may\u00a0have been just being in a room full of bad ass women and feeling that if I work hard, I can be\u00a0like them. Maybe it was being told by a very open and powerful woman, that this little shy\u00a0girl can become open and powerful. It probably had something to do with Graham Sensei\u00a0telling the kyu ranks that it was time to inhabit the front row and know that we deserve to be\u00a0there. It may also have been that while a mat full of men can sometimes feel intimidating, a\u00a0mat full of women felt welcoming and empowering. I\u2019m still not sure what it was exactly, but\u00a0for me it was magical. I can tell you I found something in my Aikido practice that I didn\u2019t\u00a0know was missing, and I can tell you that I will be at the next Women\u2019s Aikido Camp.<\/p>\n

In the world of surfing, we seem to get a particular joy out of telling people that they missed\u00a0it. We don\u2019t share our secret spots lest they get too crowded. But this I will shout from the\u00a0rooftops. Ladies, if you missed it, or if you hesitated for any reason; the next one is not to be\u00a0missed! Go for the location, go for the local spas, go to get away for a few days, whatever\u00a0your reason is, just go!<\/p>\n

To my male training partners, I can\u2019t say I missed you, but I will say that I thought of you\u00a0often. I kept thinking that I would like you to experience this too. I know what you are\u00a0thinking: \u201cSummer Camp\u2026 not Women\u2019s Camp.\u201d But what I wish is that you could experience\u00a0\u201cWomen\u2019s Aikido Camp\u201d so you could experience the intensity, the joy, and the sisterhood\u00a0with me. Guys, while I can\u2019t arrange an invitation for you, I can promise you that I will do my\u00a0best to train with the intensity and the loving spirit that I felt in Santa Fe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rosa Mitchell,\u00a0North County Aikikai Why did I go to Women\u2019s Aikido Camp? To be honest, I went mostly for the location. I looked\u00a0at the pictures of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Retreat Center, and thought a few days in\u00a0Santa Fe, New Mexico would be a well-deserved \u201cescapadita\u201d (little escape), as we say in my\u00a0family. … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Women’s Aikido Camp: “An Experience of Intensity, Joy, and Sisterhood””<\/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":[24,8,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seminar","category-birankai-aikido-shihan","category-why-i-practice-aikido"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2RSKg-tu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1828","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=1828"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2212,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1828\/revisions\/2212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biran.birankai.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}