Passions

I feel like as each day passes by and as they come to a close and I go through my nightly routines of aikido, dinner, shower, etc., that I find I am enjoying aikido more and more.

I don't know why it is what it is. Tonight was a great class. We had a guest instructor who is a friend of my sensei for over 20 years. She normally teaches and trains out in San Diego, so naturally I wanted to make every effort to show up. If not for the sole purpose of keeping up with my training and getting a decent exercise session fitted into my day, but then also to learn different things and potentially different styles from a different instructor. I mean you learn a lot by sticking with one instructor, but it's good to get different perspectives and a fresh look on the same things you would normally do every day.

Tonight I learned more about extension of the body to use physics rather than strength. To use the way my body can bend and extend, rather than curl up and lose power and have to resort to using brute force and strength, of which would be the complete opposite to the ideas of aikido. I got a great workout in tonight as well.

I don't know if it's necessarily my calling to teach aikido one day. But if you've been on this blog for awhile, you'd know I have mentioned I want to open my own dojo/school some day. And similar to how my sensei brings zen and Buddhism as a separate yet relatively connected activity, I could try to bring Christianity and Bible studies as a separate yet connected activity. I know I should see if that's what God is calling for my life rather than to just do it to compete or try to be on par with my sensei, but it's an idea.

I don't know how to discover what is a calling on my life and what passions are actually passions that the Lord instills upon me to bring into glorification of His kingdom. I guess my only idea is to pray about it. Other than that, I have no clue and will just keep going on day by day until I either figure things out, or learn by revelation.

I guess something else to note is that I get slightly bummed out when I hear I have another activity or event that will require me to skip out on aikido. I don't know if that's just me missing the workout or the development of my skill and technique. It's an even bigger bummer when I have to skip Friday's since that's the day I teach. I mean I don't get a good workout those nights, but getting to teach is an honor and being allowed to teach (meaning I am approved by my sensei) is a great feeling. Plus teaching can help me develop in different ways since I need to be able to know ideas and techniques inside out to explain and convey those ideas through words and actions.

That's all for now on this. It just might be a passion, for all I know, but there's only one thing I know to do. Pray.