Rebound

Rebound: rediscovering what you had ... getting up.

About a month ago I went to a training where it was only Ueno-san and I for the whole hour and a half, and the most important topic we went over was "rebound." We were doing just a normal version of koto-gaeshi, a technique I've done before, but it had been a while so it was super sloppy and I forgot a couple things in it. I said, "I forgot!" And Ueno-san said, "Daijobu Zac-san ... rebound." This word she said in English fit perfectly. After a few more reps, I successfully "rebounded" about to my prior ability, and we were happy to rebound together.

Aikido and other martial arts give us such a good example of this concept in life, but it really is nothing compared to the real thing ... life, that is.

Right?

Every day is a whole new opportunity to ... well ... not quite fit the ideal situation, isn't it? There's obviously a multitude of ways we can do this ... but today I was musing about one particular type of blundering. When something is given to you, a situation, a present, a person ... just right there in front of you, and all you have to do is do it, or take it ... but you don't! Instead of just naturally reaching out to accept it, thinking starts and things can get really cloudy and complicated. Maybe you walk away, back to somewhere safe where you can have all the time and darkness you want to let the demons drag you across the daggers.

Strange humans.

In my current understanding, if this happens, there's nothing that can be done to reverse it. All we can do is try to learn from any apparent mistakes, and get back to rebound as fast as you can, but not in a hurry of course.

Gotta go to practice now.