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Just do it

January 18, 2012 By Atalwin Pilon 3 Comments

Today is my first day as an uchideshi, a formal aikido student. The place where I am at is run like a traditional Japanese aikido school. That means I am not a client that has rights but a student that has duties. There is a strict schedule and the uchideshi’s are supposed to obey the schedule. On Wednesday we do a lot of cleaning. And I volunteered to be the cook!

A week ago it would have been quite remarkable that I volunteered for the preparation of the meal because I am not that confident about my cooking. But what I used to consider big obstacles are shrinking rapidly in the light of the magnitude of my quest. And even the magnitude of my quest is shrinking.

Tomorrow we are getting up at 05.30, in two hours I will have my first weapons class and afterwards there will be a regular aikido class. And you know what? I’m not worried at all. I realized this in the week before I left: the biggest obstacle that we conquer makes the other obstacles small in comparison. Once we have conquered something big smaller challenges are not that frightening anymore. That just came to me when I realized I was not intimidated by the uchideshi schedule because I was so tremendously afraid of the image of being away for a whole year. In my mind the aikido school was a relief because at least I would know where I would sleep and what I would do. While in a ‘normal’ situation where I would just attend an aikido retreat for the first time, I would be worried if I was good enough, fit enough, flexible enough etcetera, etcetera.

Let’s hope the Universe will not get back at me for jumping into conclusions too soon but what I feel I already learned is that by taking on a challenge that was (or is) almost too big to comprehend many everyday challenges become futile. The obstacles are in the mind but the only way to find out is to go out and do what we fear most. Just do it. Chances are the result will come out fine.

PS: Yesterday’s problem did dissolve too. I can travel to Jordan and fly to Beirut for € 100,-. That means that for the price of a taxi ride from my house to my mom’s place I can cross a warzone, save my original plan and learn a valuable lesson on denial. That’s pretty much a bargain.

PS2: This video was taken right after my first aikido class:

YouTube Preview Image

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Filed Under: Basic Goodness Tagged With: Aikido, Courage, Israel, Life, Personal, Warrior

Comments

  1. emelymesker@mac.com says

    January 18, 2012 at 11:06 pm

    hi,

    i feel something from watching you open up. not sure what. but i feel something.

    Reply
  2. MiKe says

    January 19, 2012 at 8:44 pm

    Wow looking forward to your learning experiences in the aikido dojo. Which weapons are they teaching?

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. It is ridiculous to stay unborn. | elephant journal says:
    January 22, 2012 at 10:00 pm

    […] you remember the video where I said how limited I felt after my first aikido class? Here a video taken directly after my […]

    Reply

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