My Four Questions

By James Shell (Baltimore Aikikai)
jshell@harford.edu

Summer camp was more than I imagined it could be, and after all my years, I can imagine a lot.

I saw Tamura Sensei dancing to Michael Jackson's "Thriller"; I watched a Japanese movie (in Japanese) about a blind man and his sword; and I witnessed what seemed like thousands of bottles of water along the wall of the practice gym consumed daily. These events and more were not even my biggest surprise.

I have had four questions stay with me since the first time I ever took an Aikido class.

1) Why the heck am I doing this?

I will get back to the fourth question in a minute.

I have always thought these questions were my own. But once I started asking around at summer camp I found out these questions also belong to everyone else. And that is my biggest surprise.

All these years I took pride in the fact that I had come up with questions that stood the test of time, endurance, and pain, only to find out that "my questions" are common as sand on the beach.

So if it helps anyone, new or experienced, the next time you ask your self one of "my questions"...you have a lot of company!

The fourth question puts the first three in perspective, "When is the next class?"

I am really glad I was part of the 2004 summer camp.