Friday, August 13, 2010

Why I Know I Have Aikido Issues, List 2

More epiphanies that reveal why I'm an aikido junkie. This is a follow-up to List 1.
  1. When my massages get too painful, I have to fight the instinct to tap out at the masseuse.
  2. I have a tendency to open swinging bathroom doors with a kokyu-ho extension of my hand blades.
  3. Sometimes I find myself practicing various aikido hand positions in my cube at work.
  4. Long power outages at work make me want to do weapons suburi in the semi-abandoned parking lot.
  5. I think about aikido: while working, while driving, and while sleeping.
  6. Instead of counting sheep, I sometimes recite aikido techniques to sleep.
  7. I've waken myself up from a dream of a break-fall by slapping the mattress.
  8. I've thwacked my significant other and even myself in my sleep as my body executes some random technique on subconscious auto-drive.
  9. When I'm at one end of a long hallway, I have the sudden urge to get to the other end by doing forward rolls.
  10. I've taken to holding my kitchen knives the way I hold my bokken: distinctly with knuckles on top.
  11. I've effortlessly (and accidentally) sliced clear through the plastic container of a yogurt drink bottle trying to cut through the plastic encasing. I blame bokken suburi #1.
  12. I once used a shomenuchi strike at a store to keep a falling baking soda packet from konking me on the head. The packet ended up bouncing off my fingertips and landing in my shopping cart.
  13. A coworker almost ran me over while riding a Razor scooter too fast through the building, and to save myself, I clipped him in the gut with an atemi.
  14. I hydroplaned on a wet bathroom floor and managed to catch myself on the sink counter before falling.
  15. I beat up a vending machine that stole the last of my change while I was starving. By repeatedly striking it with my hand blades using a kokyu-ho extension, I managed to get it to cough up my bag of potato chips.
  16. I now have use for athletic tape.
  17. I've had discoloration, callouses, mat burns, skin gouges, and scars on my feet from sitting seiza and taking ukemi.
  18. About half an hour before class starts, even on the days when there is no class, my body gears itself up with an adrenaline rush.
  19. Some nights coming back from training, I've passed out over my dinner.
  20. Showing off and comparing bruises with classmates have become an acceptable and entertaining pasttime.

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