It all started with a mistake !

It is about time I got around to starting a blog so here goes. This is the story of my wondering aikido life which started quite by accident in a room at Fort Regent Sports & Leisure Centre in 1980 when I was an eighteen year old bank clerk working for the then Lloyds Bank Ltd.

I was always very sporty and would play many team and individual sports, some to a reasonably good level, however, in a moment that is now a cloud in my distant memory, I decided that I wanted to study karate. I think back now and cannot put a finger on why I wanted to practice karate but, armed with a vigour to start kicking and punching something, even if it was to be me trying to negotiate myself out of a paper bag, I telephoned Fort Regent and asked confidently for the name and telephone number of a karate club.

They looked at their list and the first club that came to view on their alphabetical list was AIKIDO. I called the number and dutifully turned up for the next session. I did not know what Aikido was but I had walked into the dojo so felt that it would be difficult to retreat without losing face. For better or worse, there was no going back.

The guys teaching the class that night were 'yellow belts' and, watching them in action, I marvelled at how accomplished they appeared. Where was our mysterious black belt I wondered? I enjoyed the first few weeks of training but was somewhat puzzled as to why I had not punched anything or lifted my leg from the mat. Strange Karate I thought.

It was after several weeks of excrutiating pain with wrists and arms bent and twisted in ever more imaginative positions before I got to meet and train under the big cheese. Sensei Ezio was a maitre 'd' in a hotel restaurant and was a giant of a man, both upwards and sideways. Built like a brick privvy so to speak.

This amiable italian 1st Dan black belt had been on restaurant duty during the first few weeks of my training and when I saw him throw his students I wondered if wearing a parachute was advisable. Any pain and discomfort that I had experienced at the hands of novice students, paled into insignificance on the end of one of Sensei's own manipulations. At the end of some of the lessons my bruises had bruises of their own.

It was then explained to me that the martial art that I had been studying earnestly for the first month was not Karate at all, but a traditional japanese martial art based on blending with your attacker and redirecting his aggression to neutralise his attack before controlling him by a series of pins, locks and throws. Ahh blending with the mat ! Something I was good at, since I spent a lot of time being dumped on it. Why I kept getting up for more instead of melting into the mat god only knows. But he never told me. Ouch !!!