Aikido Time Machine to the Past

While living in Taiwan, a few months ago, I found out that my first two aikido teachers (both well-known in California) were teaching a workshop. Since I knew I would back in the States then, I signed up.

I found aikido just out of college, and I trained instensely with my teachers at least three times a week. I would finish my job in a law firm in San Francisco's Financial District and practice with my aikido buddies. About a year and a half later, I moved to Berkeley and never found a teacher near me with whom I connected as deeply as I had with my teachers in San Francisco, so I stopped practicing. But, aikido and my teachers had already touched me deeply.

For years, I always had the calligraphy of aikido's founder, Morihei Uyeshiba (O'Sensei) on my wall above a small altar I had in my living room. And on the altar I had a book of his sayings. Even though I wasn't practicing on the mat, I remember the lessons my teachers taught me and tried to embody them in everything I did.

I didn't know what it would feel like to practice with them again. Would I want to stay here in the Bay Area to continue my aikido practice with them? Would I feel deeply moved? Would it be an incredible experience, a high?

Fortunately, I have been practicing aikido for the past year in Taiwan, so I was confident that at least I would be able to do all the techniques. I figured my old teachers would remind me of the deeper principles of aikido: being one with your attacker, staying present in the technique instead of trying to "win", allowing ki/chi (energy) to flow through you during the technique. These were the things we practiced so hard in the old days.

My teachers looked a little older, but their words and teaching were the same as they were so many years ago. It has been over ten years since I trained with them, and it felt like I had entered a time machine and went back in time, like meeting an old girlfriend I was in love with a long time ago. My teacher even told me that I hadn't aged, in fact, that I looked younger. (As we say in English, flattery will get you everywhere.)

The workshop was fun, but it wasn't the peak experience that I thought it might be. After it ended, I felt incredible gratitude for both of my dear teachers, remembering what a large influence they had on me at a very important time in my life. At the same time, I realized how much I had changed and grown, how much had happened in my life since then.

I talked to them briefly to thank them, then quickly dressed and left.

On the way home, I went to get a haircut and it happened that the woman who cut my hair was from Taiwan. We spoke in Chinese and she was very friendly. I had visited the past today, and this haircut brought me back to my present, living in Asia, studying Chinese, studying aikido, getting ready to study more medicine.

For the first time that day, I had a big smile and was beaming.