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Bruises by David Mendenhall "A certain kind of person, usually male, tends to approach aikido from a competitive, quantitative viewpoint. If I study twenty minutes per day, it will take me ten years to get good. So if I study for an hour a day, it will take three years. If I do Aikido for twenty-four hours around the clock, I'll be a sixth dan in four months! Go! When I started, I came from an American male competitive background. I was going to get it. Now I figure there's no it to get, so I'm in no hurry." —Terry Dobson from It's a Lot Like Dancing... Humble: adj. 1. not proud or arrogant. 2. feeling insignificant, inferior, or subservient. 3. low in rank, position, or status. 4. courteously respectful.   tr.v. 5. to destroy the independence, power, or pride of. 6. to lower in rank, position, or status. Mr. Mendenhall, what do you think of my lead? Mr. Mendenhall, how can I change this dialogue? Mr. Mendenhall what if... Some days I can answer every student question. I know how things work, mostly. When it comes to writing and math, I can teach 13 year-olds all kinds of cool stuff. I can turn on my computer and whip up web pages and Power Point presentations and talk about poetry and literature and film and rudimentary physics. Yeah, I'm a real Renaissance man. And then maybe I go to aikido class. It's an introductory class, so maybe Sensei summons me to be his uke. Days ago, hours ago, even minutes ago, I may have thought, "Wow, what an honor! I must really be getting somewhere for Sensei to demonstrate with me like this." And then he throws me. It doesn't go