I've been over the events of my weekend Aikido Gasshuku in my mind a number of times, thinking of some great strategies to write about my experiences in-Blog.
I’m sitting down at my usual café, sipping an extra strong iced coffee (I'm on a first name basis with the staff here, they all but serve up the iced coffee when they see me walk through the door), and as I look around at the colourful, bustling, bright Sydney lifestyle - hairdressing salons, tailor store, clothes stores, shoppers etc. - can't help but feel the surreality of the world we live in.
So much symbolism, so many social and cultural protocols, so many pretencities. Not all good, not all bad, just... complicated, and not entirely authentic.
After three days of intensive Aikido training in a Blue Mountains retreat just outside of Sydney, I find it difficult and yet comforting to readjust to my regular lifestyle. I feel comfortable, safe, and yet at the same time I am left with this gaping chasm of emptiness, as though my life is filled with all these bright colours, noises, symbols and events, but that they don't actually mean anything.
Aikido challenges me, pushes me, improves me, fills my life with a vibrant energy which I find I’m hardly able to describe. Yet it has left me with the recent realisation that its shown me a better way of living, in fact - it has shown me how to live, as though before I wasn't living at all but waiting to discover Aikido.
All this sounds pretty incredible, I know, I find it incredible myself. But now I am left with the knowledge that my life is left wanting - the time in between Aikido training feels almost wasted to me. I don't know whether to thank or curse Aikido for this wonderous gift. Thank it for showing me an incredible and fulfilling world which challenges my mental, spiritual and physical worlds, or curse it for showing me that my life up until this point has been incredibly empty - regardless of my lack of knowledge to that effect.
Now that that's over, I should talk a little about the actual Gasshuku, which was my original intent in writing this entry in the first place.
Nah... Maybe I'll leave that until tomorrow :)
'Till then, to any would be wanderers who happen to stumble upon my meager and virtually empty little blog which has only just emerged from the womb, good luck with your Aikido adventures!
