Revelation

Good GOD do I love taekwondo. Went to class tonight and felt like a fish back in water after a long drought (otherwise known as two consecutive aikido classes.)  The two styles both hold class in the same dojo but the one is the familiar and comfortable and the other the new and formidable. I've been studying TKD for four years now.  I'm considered a relatively high belt and I know what I'm freaking doing most of the time, as opposed to aikido, in which I am a white belt of about four months and utterly lost in class more often than not.  Talk about alpha and omega.  TKD is a striking art and aikido a purely defensive one, so whatever muscle memory I have going in martial arts is all wrong for aikido too!

Ugh. Oh well.  

I'm a stubborn SOB, so I refuse to give up.  Aikido has already improved my rolls and breakfalls, and maybe someday my ability to do something in this style other than land on the floor at high speed without hurting myself will improve as well.  ;)  Although I'm not feeling at all simpatico with my sensei on a personal level, he is an 8th-dan black belt, which is astronomically high.  There is clearly much I can learn from him, and that just has to be my focus right now.  One small improvement at a time, with forays back to TKD to restore my self-confidence in between!