More Sake, Less Aikido

This weekend I went to Hiroshima for a sake festival, and I realized that although I have been absolutley shocked/amazed/elated/satiated to be invited to Saturday aikido training, I haven't been once. When I started going to extra practice on Wednesday, sensei was still hesitant to lure me to Saturday training because he can't give me a ride, and feels bad to make me bike 45 minutes to the dojo. But last week, he asked another student if they can give me a ride to Saturday practices. I was unbelieveably flattered to hear this comment from sensei especially considering his usual demeanor. I am certainly capable of biking to practice, especially on a Saturday. But even now with the help of a ride, I wonder if I'll ever make it on Saturday. At first, I was making bike trips to the mountains, and for the past month, I have been exploring new faraway places in Japan on the weekends like Fukui, Osaka, and Hiroshima. This upcoming weekend, there is an event I have to go to keeping me from going to training, and am already lining up trips to faraway places on the following weekends. Either I am an idiot for passing up this rare training experience in Japan, or I'm glad that I realize aikido isn't the most important thing in my life, and am taking advantage of this rare oppurtunity in Japan to see it's full spectrum of cultural differences. This Saturday, instead of dressing up in my gi for aikido practice, I frequented tents displaying Japan's wide array of famous sake as soon as I could empty my cup.

An empty cup is no good if you don't fill it anyway right? Especially if you already paid the $20 entry fee.

Whatever.

Genuine experiences from a gaijin in love with aikido and exploration.