6 January 2004: Light

Saturday night I went to bed sick; Sunday morning I woke up even sicker. The congestion in my sinuses, throat, and chest was so bad that I could barely speak. It was 9:45 when I woke up; I had to teach my first aikido class of the year at 11:00. I was expecting to have a bunch of brand-new beginning students, which meant that I needed to be able to make a good first impression, and also to do a lot more talking than I usually do in a class.

It was plainly necessary to medicate myself in some way. A search of the house pharmacy turned up an 8-ounce bottle of Robitussin CF, the label of which claimed that it loosened chest congestion, controlled coughs, and relieved nasal congestion. The latter effect was achieved through the ingredient pseuodoephidrine, which, in addition to its decongestant properties, has effects similar to those of methamphetamines.

Recommended dosage was one teaspoonful. The bottle was half full (half-empty, for you pessimists out there). I was still mostly asleep, and my head was all stuffed up, and I was woozy from fever. Trying to pour a dose into a spoon was out of the question. I raised the bottle to my lips and tried to estimate how big a sip constituted a teaspoonful. But I was also dehydrated, and when I tilted the bottle back, some primal thirst instinct took over and I drank the entire four ounces or so in one gulp.

I don’t remember much about the next hour. Vague recollections of collapsing onto the couch, the room spinning, Dragon Lady asking if she should call Foxfire and tell him he’d be teaching the class, me saying no, I can do it, and noticing with pleasure that I’d stopped coughing, my sinuses were quite clear, and I seemed to be levitating.

Then I was at the Y, greeting my old students plus a whole lot of brand-new ones whose names I guess I’ll have to ask again next time. I didn’t exactly feel sick anymore, but I felt insubstantial, and not terribly steady. Cheerful as all heck, though, which was wonderful for setting nervous beginners at ease.

I remember thinking, “This is how light I’ll feel when I’ve dropped all my vanities.”

And later: “I can barely stand up. I’m weak and awkward and disoriented – and that’s exactly how beginners feel in aikido. So I’ll just do things that I’m comfortable doing in this state, because anything I can handle doing today, the beginners will also be able to handle.”

And: “I can’t find my center at all, but that doesn’t seem to be making a difference... didn’t I just spend the latest session of the Initiations lab practicing moving with my center in all different places? Gee, what a suspicious coincidence...”

And: “Gee, I’m talking a lot, and all these people are smiling and nodding. I wonder if I’m being coherent?”

And: “This is how I must learn to always be in aikido. This light. This is what I’m meant to be working on this year, and this is how God is showing me the way.”

And I taught the best aikido intro class I’d ever taught. Everyone loved it. All the beginners stayed through the whole class, including the ones who’d said they might not be able to, and they were all radiant and smiling at the end. My advanced students told me how good it was. Highlander, a black belt from elsewhere who joined my dojo recently, and who has trained under several instructors whom I hold in high esteem, told me it was the best aikido intro class he’d ever seen.

This light, loving, cheerful approach was exactly what I’d been planning, for the past few months, for the crowd of beginners that I was expecting to get in the new year. But I hadn’t known just how light I could be, or what that would feel like. I’d been getting a sense of it from my experiences in the Initiations lab, but this brought it to a whole new level. The combination of illness and pseudoephedrine overdose short-circuited all my “sensei baggage” – all my stiffness, heaviness, intensity, aloofness, vanity, and insecurity, and also all of the physical strength, centeredness, and agility that I’d been unwittingly relying on - said reliance having kept me, it turns out, from diving into the next level of my aikido. All the armor and weapons and vanity stripped away, and nothing to fall back on but the real stuff, the core of sweetness and grace that’s been slowly developing underneath it all, that I’ve been uncovering in the Initiations lab. It all came together, because it was all I had.

Tomorrow night I teach again. Another intro class. I’m expecting an even bigger crowd. No decongestants this time. Tomorrow night, God willing, I’ll teach another light, loving intro class, even better than the one on Sunday. Because now I know what it feels like. Now I’ve been initiated.

Okay, I’m off to lab. Tomorrow I’ll write a long entry about Sunday night’s lab session, and about whatever happens tonight. Namaste, dudes and dudesses.