Tire Shavings and Other Lessons
Well, I'm back in Miami to finish what we started before Hurricane Ernesto forced us to retreat. I am happy to report that I was pretty anxiety free during yesterday's plane rides. I saw my mother in law yesterday. We hung out and watched a movie. I was very happy to be with her.
The past couple of days have been pretty interesting and fun at the dojo. I have learned a lot, but have hardly done any Aikido. You see, after Saturday's class, Sensei pushed back dojo clean up so we could take a look at what seemed like a defective area on the mat. There were about five students in the class and we all stayed to help. We rolled up the mat's white canvas top to reveal a Hodge podge of different blocks of carpet. Like a massive quilt put together by a mad scientist or a child that has had too much sugar, it was an explosion of color. It was beautiful. I could not help but feel that this multi colored quilt is a manifestation of the child like joy I feel in the dojo. I love the apparent contradiction that a Aikido is practiced in a martial environment, but at the same time have such a joyous spirit pulsating underneath. That is a big part of what makes this dojo special.
Upon closer examination, Sensei determined that we needed to replace an entire sector of the mat with new carpet. Luckily, one of our students had a bunch of carpet left over at her house. Before we knew it, a plan was formed and we went to work. While three of our students went to get the carpet I worked the phones to find a tool rental place as we needed a carpet iron to glue the new pieces of carpet. After leaving everything ready, we decided to call it a day and be back bright and early the next morning to repair the carpet. A few of us went to lunch at a good Thai restaurant where I was schooled on the value of spicy. I stopped at Spicy scale 4, but J was busy with a number 8 (10 being the highest). After a while all I could hear was J sniffling.
The next day, we cut out the defective piece of carpet to expose a black surface. It looked like the grassy stuff one puts on an Easter basket, only black. Turns out they are tire shavings. I can only imagine the time and effort it must have taken them to put all those tire shavings in place and at the correct level. I am very thankful I get to practice here. By working together, we were able to accomplish the repairs in time for the 12:30 PM class. This is worth mentioning because I am by no means a handy man, but everything seemed to flow and we were able to meet our goals with relative ease. I, however, did not stay for the class as I was leaving for Miami and suddenly missed my wife terribly, so I went home. I miss the dojo already. It is fast becoming another extension of what I like to call 'home'.
The past couple of days have been pretty interesting and fun at the dojo. I have learned a lot, but have hardly done any Aikido. You see, after Saturday's class, Sensei pushed back dojo clean up so we could take a look at what seemed like a defective area on the mat. There were about five students in the class and we all stayed to help. We rolled up the mat's white canvas top to reveal a Hodge podge of different blocks of carpet. Like a massive quilt put together by a mad scientist or a child that has had too much sugar, it was an explosion of color. It was beautiful. I could not help but feel that this multi colored quilt is a manifestation of the child like joy I feel in the dojo. I love the apparent contradiction that a Aikido is practiced in a martial environment, but at the same time have such a joyous spirit pulsating underneath. That is a big part of what makes this dojo special.
Upon closer examination, Sensei determined that we needed to replace an entire sector of the mat with new carpet. Luckily, one of our students had a bunch of carpet left over at her house. Before we knew it, a plan was formed and we went to work. While three of our students went to get the carpet I worked the phones to find a tool rental place as we needed a carpet iron to glue the new pieces of carpet. After leaving everything ready, we decided to call it a day and be back bright and early the next morning to repair the carpet. A few of us went to lunch at a good Thai restaurant where I was schooled on the value of spicy. I stopped at Spicy scale 4, but J was busy with a number 8 (10 being the highest). After a while all I could hear was J sniffling.
The next day, we cut out the defective piece of carpet to expose a black surface. It looked like the grassy stuff one puts on an Easter basket, only black. Turns out they are tire shavings. I can only imagine the time and effort it must have taken them to put all those tire shavings in place and at the correct level. I am very thankful I get to practice here. By working together, we were able to accomplish the repairs in time for the 12:30 PM class. This is worth mentioning because I am by no means a handy man, but everything seemed to flow and we were able to meet our goals with relative ease. I, however, did not stay for the class as I was leaving for Miami and suddenly missed my wife terribly, so I went home. I miss the dojo already. It is fast becoming another extension of what I like to call 'home'.
posted by Auggie at 6:25 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home