When I'm not there.

A few stats on last week's training:

--Classes attended: 11
--With practice after class: more than 22 hours of training
--It wasn't aspirin, after all: more than 36 ibuprofen tablets taken
--Each ibuprofen: 200mg
--Dogi worn: 4
--Loads of dojo-specific laundry: 3
--Miles driven to and from the dojo: 96 (estimated)

The bright spot is that last one. In college, my commute to the dojo was ninety miles each way. So, relative to my younger days, at least I'm saving money. I'm probably spending all the money saved on gas on ibuprofen; back then, I needed only a distraction (homework; girls; Law&Order reruns) and a beer to heal. Aging, apparently, involves pecuniary as well as existential costs. I'm at least a little thankful each day, though, that I now spend more time inside the dojo than driving to and from it. Even when the traffic getting there is holiday-season-dumb.

The pain today is having to make that qualification: (estimated). Today, my girlfriend came back into town after a week away, and, by Murphy's Law, her flight got in during class time. There were two classes today, and the girlfriend is a far better one than I deserve, so she agreed to wait in the dojo during the second class, because it's halfway between home and the airport, and the timing just barely worked out.

Now, of course I was gratified when Sensei seemed actually glad to see make the second class, but as I recall the smile he greeted me with, I reflexively think about the class he'd finished teaching only minutes earlier, which I had missed.

No, I don't remember who did it, or where, but there was a poll taken of centenarians at the turn of the milennium, which asked, among other things, about their biggest regrets. Their consensus: missed opportunities. I'm not likening missing one hour of aikido to a marriage proposal, participation in a war, or international travel. I'm just shedding a little light on the dark corners of what some might call an aikido addiciton. Aikido is a living art. Every practice, practitioner, and execution of a technique is a unique intersection of effort and time. O-Sensei wrote of this repeatedly, in terms more eloquent than mine. I'll recommend his writings rather than elucidate further. At any rate, each moment of training I miss is one I can't ever get back. In this way, the love for aikido is just like that for a girlfirend, or a good drive, or anything else.

Admittedly, sometimes, with the bruises and the fat lips and the limping, the love of aikido does look very different from those other ones.

You don't get used to it.

I mean, you do, sort of, sure. Everyone remembers their first nikkyo. Hoo-boy. For so many of us, it's the first technique we feel, when we ask that neighbor, or cousin, or new teacher: "so, what's this aikido stuff you're talking about?"

"Grab my wrist," the neighbor says, taking a break from mowing his lawn.

Boom. Nikkyo. Nage has lots of control, it requires little or no ukemi beyond the intuitive "ouch" and crouch; so, for dealing with first-timers, it's a go-to technique. And we are all first-timers at some point. And we all remember that first nikkyo. The sensation of every third resident of China using your wrist as a crash-test dummy for learning acupuncture, all at once. Then, it gets better. You get a little used to it. Your wrists get stronger, then larger, and if you stick with it, somebody one day says that grabbing your wrist is like grabbing steel cable.

You do not get used to anything over the course of a single day.

Five hours of aikido for me, today, spread out over three classes. Twice a week, lately, I've been enjoying this indulgence of time and exertion. Today, I started to feel the wear on my knees in hour two. It did not go away. I did not get used to it. Fifteen minutes into what would have been the sixth hour, I was done for the day, not because I wanted to be, but because I had to be. And, even after limping to the car, and then into the house, for a reason having nothing to do with the pre-existing leg injury, my head's too preoccupied looking forward to tomorrow's three hours of class to really feel the pain from today. It's probably time to take some aspirin, before the subconscious absorbs the blog and figures out how the body's supposed to feel.