It's 1994, my first summer camp and I am a beginner. I meet myself with a pounding heart, when I step on to the mat. I feel unsure and awkward in my body, although I know how to roll and sort of know how to move as an aikidoist. There are 400+ people in the dojo. I am afraid.
In all honesty, I probably spent the first 5 years of practice, mostly holding my breath. Then one day, I exhaled, and saw what letting go, into the movement, actually means.
Then I attack hard, in what I think is a heart felt way, but really I am aggressive. I do not know, yet, the difference between an attack with intention, and being rough. I hold my partner's arm like it is a tree branch, not something human, and attached to a living being.
I wanted to know what I'm doing and show what I know. What I don't know, is that it will take a very long time to realize how little I knew, and that's really where learning aikido started for me. That is why I call aikido the ego reduction plan.
My mind is active, trying hard to remember the moves, to not “wander off” the mat thinking about other random things. At this stage in training I tried to use my mind to help me. Years later, I understand that turning off my mind, noticing, and being in the moment, is actually the state of being we need. It is this very state of being that helps us to live off the mat, in full contact with our experience. A beginner's mind.
We step on the mat: we meet our ego; our desire to be special; our wanting to be excellent; our need to feel superior; our fear of making mistakes, and looking foolish. As we practice, over time, we let go of these as we allow ourselves to just simply, be.
As is true, we start a beginner and when we can accept that we are, in every moment, a beginner, we become free.