(no subject)

[ocelot]

Today I went to observe an aikido class. Someone else showed up to observe, only she wanted to actually try it out, so I ended up trying it out, too.

It was reasonably fun. I guess I'll give it a shot.

(Do I sound less than enthused? It was fun, and will be good for me, but for some reason martial arts really don't appeal to me right now. This is a little weird, given that I used to be really into martial arts, and aikido was one I always wanted to try. I have a feeling the mother archetype and the warrior archetype are too far removed from eachother, at least in modern society.)

(For those who did not actually know me in high school, which is most of you - I practiced karate for three years, so I was pretty into martial arts in the past. My most recent experience was with the world's most negative Tai Chi instructor 3 years ago, which, having observed other Tai Chi classes since, I no longer have any regrets whatsoever about dropping.)

The other new person and I spent the whole class rolling. I felt a little bad. She was, I think, entirely new to it, while I was mainly remembering skills I hadn't used in 7 years, or had learned slightly differently, so I was having a much easier and quicker time of it.

I'm not entirely sure if this is my One True Class. The sensei seems a little sharp-tongued, but not to an obviously intolerable point. It's a very small class (only three regular students, plus us two new people), which may be an indicator that he has trouble retaining students. Or perhaps just that not as many people are attracted to it in the first place.

Part of my hesitation is, honestly, dumb - my freshman roommate took aikido at the same place, and didn't like it. But it's been 7 years, and the teacher has likely changed, assuming it is the same teacher at all. Even if it is, there's nothing to say that her dislike has any bearing on whether I'll like it. It's not like we were all that close.

In any case, unless I end up really hating it, I'll give it a shot until I get pregnant again (probably not for at least another 9 months, given that both koyote and I were born about 3 years apart from our siblings and don't feel it's an ideal separation), and then see what I want to do from there. That should be enough of a trial for me to know if it's something I want to stick with.

There is a stinky skunk somewhere nearby.

Anyways, I feel like we're finally breaking the holding pattern we've been in. koyote has a job, and is taking hapkido 5 times a week. I guess I'm doing this aikido, probably taking over the superwork at the co-op (4 hours of volunteer work a week in exchange for a 16.5% discount on groceries), and this Saturday I'm taking the class for the volunteer doula program at the local hospital. Leif has story hour at the library tomorrow (we'll see if it goes better than previous attempts - he's more into books now than he used to be), and I think we'll sign him up for a gymnastics class starting in October (well, "Movement Education" actually. They don't start calling it gymnastics until age 3). It seems like the type of thing he'd like.

Yay.

Comments

[dempcat.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who took aikido and really liked it as opposed to other martial arts he'd tried. I couldn't tell you why though o.o

[pezzgrrrl.livejournal.com]

I have a feeling the mother archetype and the warrior archetype are too far removed from eachother, at least in modern society.

then you have never met my mother, who is has her black belt in aikido. & lemme tell ya, she is most definitely both.

[therealocelot.livejournal.com]

Oh, I know plenty myself. I don't mean they *can't* overlap, just that they aren't encouraged to overlap in our society as a whole, and it is hard to avoid internalizing the concept.

[telemicus]

It is interesting what you say about the 3 yrs separation - I had that too with my siblings and spent a lot of my childhood filled with jealous rage and plotting their demise! I minored in child development and found research that said the best way for lots of measures of both child success in life and of healthy sibling relationships was (best) to either have 2 kids right after each other (which was my masterplan but now there is just no way, financially) so that kid 1 doesn't get old enough to get know life as an only child, or (second best) leave at least 4 yrs between them so kid 1 is old enough to reason and be included as a helper with kid 2. (This is now our back up plan)
I really strongly believe in this research!

[therealocelot.livejournal.com]

Just out of curiosity, how close is "right after eachother"? With Leif, I didn't get my period back until 9 months, so (barring prematurity), 18 months would have been a minimum separation. Christof and I joke frequently about not breastfeeding in order to get my period back faster so we can have seven kids under five, but in reality I'm not willing to do that, and pretty sure it wouldn't be the healthiest thing for me to get pregnant sooner than 9 months or a year regardless.

We would like to have two kids relatively close together, but since that obviously isn't happening with Leif, we'll have to see what happens with the next one.

[telemicus]

The more I read about pregnancy the more I see how physiologically unhealthy it is for a mother to have two kids one right after the other, so yes, it's a trade off. Obviously, best of all (from a preventing-jealous pov) would be twins. But you have to balance financial and health issues against psychological health of the sibling relationships. For me, we'll need to wait years before we can make another bairn, for $ reasons and my blood problems :(

[essara-lemuroid.livejournal.com]

Wow, you're going to train to be a volunteer doula? I'm so in awe...
I had briefly toyed with the idea of becoming a doula when I was pregnant, but my random squeamishness would be a major hinderance.
Anyway, I gave birth at the birthing center here in Davis and had 2 wonderful doulas - they were amazing, couldn't have done it without them. (Ok, obviously not true, would have had to have an epidural if they hadn't been there).

So you guys are already planning to have another baby? I'm a little jealous. B is *adamantly* against having another, but I very much want to.

[therealocelot.livejournal.com]

Well, now I've done the training - the class was last Saturday. I don't know how I'll do with the blood and gore aspect. It doesn't bother me intellectually, but it's also not something I've had a lot of experience with.

koyote is actually more hyped about the idea of having another kid than I am. Even though both of us feel a three year separation isn't ideal, he'd be happy if I got pregnant today, while I'm feeling like I'm finally getting some of myself back and am really not ready yet. We both like the idea of having three kids, though.