Kangeiko: day 8

I guess it's a sign of success for a dojo when the mat is full of people. It's certainly better than the alternative, a paucity of students. Today, however, may have been an extreme. It was the first class of the new beginner's course and five new students, along with the recently good turnout for kangeiko, nine regular students, made for a very crowded mat.

Seeing the beginners naturally brings me back to my first few days at the dojo. Their struggles with koho ukemi (back break falls), kamae (stance), and shikko ho highlight the progress I've made over the past eight months. I know that in terms of my Aikido, I'm still a novice, but I can't say the progress I've made isn't insignificant. One thing I've come to realize though, is that it's not how much progress I've made, or how much further I have left to go, but what's important is that I go to the dojo and train hard every day. This is the road to Aikido. If I can just do that, everything else will take care of itself.