My legs hurt. Portions of my back hurt. My shoulders hurt. My ass hurts. I need my ass - it’s my sit-around-and-watch-movies muscle! (Uh, which might be why two hours of aikido made my everything sore and very pissed off at me, do you think?)
And honestly, the whole everything-hurts phenomenon is only secondary to the actual Aikido experience, which is in general clumsy, difficult, and embarassing. And I don’t think I remember a single bit of it, so next time is going to be the same thing, only more so. (Two hours? Two hours is insane!) Two hours of social nightmare, is what it is. It’s kinda like a bad dream, you know, here, go get manhandled by people you’ve just met (or worse, manhandle them, only do it wrong and not really understand why they don’t go flying around the room like you just did), and you’re doing it in some Japanese guy’s pajamas. When you actually get your oriental underwear. (Somehow it’s even worse in your gym clothes, like a mark of Cain that denotes your insufficient control of ki.) And you have to sit on your ankles all the time. Oh, and they’re all really nice about it. But you never wake up, at least until the next morning when you can’t get out of bed because your ass hurts too much.
My heating pad warns me not to sit on it. Fuck you, heating pad. Why do you think I bought you? It isn’t your good looks, and it sure isn’t your social skills.
Anyway, it was also a really good time, and I’m so totally going back! I really like the rolling, it’s kinda like being a little kid again and actually liking gym, like in first grade. Only there’s a lot more of me now to crunch into a wall, and I think I better learn how to go in a straight line in a real hurry. And the people are really nice, and good teachers. But man, does it suck being dumb man on the totem pole when you start something new, especially if it’s something entirely foreign to all your previous experience. (Two hours!)
Good luck with this. I’ve taken JiuJutsu which is fairly similar in the throwing department and yeah, the first few lessons were a nightmare. After you get the throwing/being-thrown down a little better it gets much easier.
Haven’t even gotten to the getting thrown down part yet. Just forced down on the ground. I just can’t wait to go flying like the other guys. They make such a thump!
Are you short or tall? Tall people are much easier to throw. They should have you doing something like tumbling for a while, falling down or jumping and rolling out of it and then standing up. It can be remarkably smooth when you get used to it. A good test (once you get used to it) is to do it on cement. I got a real surprise the first time I did that.
It’s just hard to be enthusiastic when I have to practice and mentally prepare to get up off the toilet, ya know? I think I need to practice the “Catholic calisthenics” part of it - you know, sit kneel stand kneel sit kneel, etc. The rest of the soreness is just twinges compared to all those muscles that help me sit down and stand back up again.
Yep, it’s hard. How well I remember one night in aikido class when only me and one other guy showed up. This meant, basically, that there were no “down times” to rest during the class, since there was no one else to practice techniques upon. We figured out later that each of us had been knocked flat on the mat and stood back up over 200 times during the one hour class, and if you’ve never lay completely flat and stood up 200 times in an hour, give it a try before you say, “Piece of cake!” Man, were my legs and butt hurting the next day.
But in general, yes, aikido was very fun, especially the rolling and the randori. You wouldn’t think a big ol’ moose like me could roll gracefully, but I could. Although, for some reason, I never got the knack of rolling backwards over my right shoulder; I’d always switch halfway through and end up going over my left.
I’m reluctant to try and practice it to get my legs used to it, because I’m afraid I might do it wrong. Practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent. At the same time, I really want to improve, so I’m not sure what to do besides wait a few weeks to really practice.
Hey - just remember that everyone there who looks so graceful now started as total klutzes. I’ve been practicing for six years and I still have the occasional morningafteritis difficulty.
If you are really having trouble with sitting in seiza there are a couple of things to try. One, if your dojo allows it, is to sit cross-legged if the instructor is giving a lengthy demonstration, just switching back to seiza for the bowing bits.
There is an exercise that my family doctor recommended for me that I found helped to deal with the feeling of having ice picks slowly scraped around the insides of my knee joints that seiza used to inflict on me. You can do this just before you drift off to sleep. Lying flat on your back, clench the muscles in the front of your thighs while pushing out through your heels - the feeling is that you are trying to push the backs of your knees into the matress by bending your legs the wrong way around. Hold the clench for a slow ten count, then relax. Do about ten repititions every night. I found that after a couple of weeks of this, seiza was almost relaxing.
He. I did karate for a number of years, and while throwing and rolling was minimal, the pain I do remember very well.
The upside? It goes away. The large splothches of purple bruising gets more infrequent. And the movemments get easier too, though never quite as easy as it looks like when the others do it.
And I can still sitt on my knees for hours on end with no pain, something I’ve impressed people with. (Not that we ever did seiza for hours, but if seinsei was in a pissy mood it could last a while. My class consisted of teenage boys mostly, so ten minutes or so of seiza was a good way of getting the discipline back up.)
Do stick with it. It is a lot of fun. I did quit eventually, but that was unrelated to the sport itself. I still miss it, sometimes.
Oh, and if you stay for a year or so, and haven’t had the everything-hurts in a while, and you’re just breathing a sight of relief that that bit is finally over? Forget about it. You’ll still get that from time to time, no matter how long you stay.
I did taekwondo when I was younger and experienced none of this soreness and stiffness. I don’t know WHAT in the hell this is all about.
(insert smilies here)
Glad you enjoyed it. It’s not my martial art, but Aikido was the first martial art I ever had any experience with, and I remember the feeling of awkwardness, watching the advanced students move so gracefully, wearing workout clothes when everyone else has a neato gi. Your soreness is a good thing, believe it or not - it means you got a good workout, enjoy it!
Eh, the first three, I think. Mostly it’s the noise I’ve been making the past three days (I’m finally feeling better) whenever I try to sit down or stand up. I find it helps with my momentum.
I’m pretty bummed, though, because I won’t be able to make it to class this week - I know if I don’t go, I’m going to be feeling as bad or worse when I do go. I guess I’ll have to start actually showing up at the gym just to support the whole Aikido thing.
I think I need to practice the “Catholic calisthenics” part of it - you know, sit kneel stand kneel sit kneel, etc. The rest of the soreness is just twinges compared to all those muscles that help me sit down and stand back up again.