Martial Dance

My husband has nagged me about taking care of my health and conditioning our entire married life. He wants us to be capable of enjoying our time left and to be capable of helping our adult children as we do with our granddaughter. It can be a little much, as when he wanted me to do a particular exercise so “I won’t have to push you around in a wheel chair in the future.” At his urging, I’ve lifted weights, joined him at a gym, and trained in martial arts.

When our kids were done with T-ball and Little League, he also wanted an exercise for our children. Gary had wanted to train in Aikido since before we were married and decided this was the time. As it turned out, he meant the time for all four of us. He found a dojo and Gary, I, and ten-year-old Adam and six-year-old Bria started our six and a half-year journey, attending evening classes between two and four times a week.

In my mid-forties, shoulder rolls, a staple of training, were a challenge, as was fending off attacking fellow students—randori!–who were bent on proving their skills by sending shooting pains up my hand to my elbow before throwing me. (In fairness that was only one guy.) Our kids loved the training, made friends, and we found a community.

Aikido is a graceful martial art. I loved watching the children train and test. I loved watching and participating in training as well. I viewed the movements as a dance of “getting out of the way” (the first rule of Aikido) to counter an attack and then maneuver to throw your attacker.

Over the years, we earned our brown belts, the last step before preparing for our black belt tests. When I envisioned my future black belt test, my husband would be my partner (the one I’d throw), and I choreographed an Aikido “dance” to feature my/our skills.

As with most of my dance fantasies, that one was never realized. Our wonderful senseis moved to Mexico, where life was cheaper, to start a dojo. (There's little money in ethical teaching of martial arts.) The sensei who took over our dojo had a full-time job and a family and eventually realized he didn’t have the time to commit to a second job.

The community spirit dissolved (no more barbecues) and the dojo closed. We never tested for black belts. Bummer. That would have been fun to have under our belts, so to speak. And think of the lost bragging rights!

A year after the close of our Aikido dojo, Gary enrolled in karate with the kids, and I stayed at home to dance. Soon, Adam went off to college, but Bria continued at the karate dojo for over a decade.

Gary had moved on to his next martial art, Tai Chi. He drove to class in Seattle for a couple of years until we lucked out and found a class in Edmonds with a skilled and patient teacher.

Learning the Tai Chi Chen form has been one of the best movement experiences of my life and serves me well as I age. Tai Chi is beautiful to watch and practice. I love the way I feel as my feet move along the space beneath me, and my knees, hips, chest, elbows, hands, and head follow. It is a martial dance you can do daily for yourself. The movements are graceful, fluid and comforting. The deep breathing is meditative. I can focus on each part of my body as I reach, settle, swing, push, punch, balance, release. Relax.

I have to thank my husband for being so, um... pushy. I have experienced the Chen form and Tai Chi as yet another wonderful dance.