Chief Instructor

About Aikido of Champlain Valley

Class Schedule and Rates

Directions to Dojo

Children's Classes

Dojo Newsletter

Frequently Asked Questions

Preregister for Intro Series

Links

E-mail Us!

Flower Petals Fall by David Mendenhall "When people forget that they are going to die, and act as if they think they are going to live forever, they do not fully appreciate and utilize the passing months and years. As long as they are like this, they only act on greed, anger, and falsehood, turning away from social and family duties, not understanding human kindness and obligation, employing flattery and cajolery, neglecting home and work for useless hobbies and amusements." —Suzuki Shosan "Learning is the gate, not the house. When you see the gate, don't think it is the house. You have to go through the gate to get to the house, which is behind it." —Yagyu Munenori The bokken whirs above my head, then slashes down toward cool earth. Sunlight paves its way over the yard, pushing shadows aside from the bark of maple and willow. Frost grips lightly, naked spring branches. Here and there a bat ricochets black against bluing sky. The bokken slashes. I breathe. My bare feet stumble over the uneven earth of our yard, toes cold and red at dawn on a Sunday morning in March. I finish a kata, breathe, knees bent nearly level with sword. Not right. In my mind, I lower my center before trying again. I bend deeper at the knees, one of which still aches from surgery, irimi, cut, and kaiten. Again. My arms and shoulders tighten and tire. I drop them limply to my sides, breathe, look to the windows above where, inside, my wife and daughter sleep in our bed. Later I'll make breakfast and wash dishes. I will wash clothes and empty garbage. Black toenails scrape frost from brown grass. Bone spurs protrude from weathered heels. These ugly feet slide through eight kata Sensei has shown us these last weeks. I fumble through the Japanese names of this block or that in my head. I know nothing. At the corner of our yard, buds bead out along the slender branches of a mock orange bush like droplets of green ice. The dried stumps of box elder branches I severed last summer point spear-like shafts into the sky at the base of the slight bush. They will return, these box elders, thick and tenacious, winding their way up the bush to strangle blossoms in white August. They will return, and I will cut them away again. My shadow shortens. The sun rises higher. I cut. I can see that the petals within the buds have already fallen. I cut; my shadow shortens. Soon I will be nothing but the fall of petals, and again.