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After morning aikido, we loaded Sarah's fit (so tiny!  So Huge!) and Andy Wood's mondo truck with mats for the evening demonstration in Raleigh.  Open Sky was invited to bring folks again...very fun stuff!  

The demo went great.  Lots of adults were there, and even more folks from the kids program.  Highlights of the festival, to me, were excellent Taiko drumming and Bon dancing.  And our demo :-D !  At any rate, I love being part of demos, especially as an uke - folks get all charged up and throw with some extra ummph.

Also, during the festival my bro Tom called to talk some relationship ideas... since he's still processing a previous relationship.  It was somewhat coincidental, since Sarah and I had some good relationship talks in the last few days as well.  One theme I feel is essential in processing relationships is allowing oneself to be "normal."  That seems to come up all the time.  Here's what I mean:

Let's say some crazy stuff happens in the relationship... and you end up "breaking up" (whatever that means, in practice!) with that person.  I feel I've experienced and I've been a friend to others that have experienced wild emotions after the fact, many of which folks might not want to be experiencing: jealousy, anger, deep sadness/despair, etc.  But then there's the self-hostility that sometimes gets let out when we have these cultural norms of "clean breaks."  What is that?  Personally, I've never been able to "stop" feeling for folks.  My feelings have changed over time, and never overnight... but never "stopped."  There are a host of cultural models that relate to relationships I think are Nutso, but for now I'll leave it there.

Also, as is clear (maybe?) I'm still gradually getting into this blog THANG.  Eventually, I'm hoping to concentrate days so each day is a different themed post... but this month I'm just getting used to posting sometimes... and more and more so.  So.  Another successful, rambly post.  

Good thing, to me, setting up a blog and a website is a process.  And I've significantly tamed a lot of my crazy perfectionism, though my old friend is certainly still in this habit mind of mine.  

Anywho, more later as I ramble...I've still mentally got a month of play before I establish a routine!  

peace,mike

Labels: aikido, relationships, sarah kaneko, tom

Exciting, looks like the bulk of the site is working.  Perhaps I can be "official."  

Making a website's a hoot.  My experience of it has been confronting a lot of narcissism and perfectionism.  I'll be using my site, in part, for work related things... but also for telling stories.  What stories?  Well, hopefully ones other folks care about or find food for thought.

Til then, it's a Saturday morning.  I'm in NJ visiting family and friends... enjoyed seeing Maggie (the shore was fun and motivating, thanks again for the invite) and Camille (congrats on your new book coming out!).  Nanny, my grandmother, is still recovering from a knee surgery, so I checked in with her once or twice for company.  Tom's off to teach at kayaking school after a week working for Physical Therapy, and hanging out with Mom's been fun - we had a particular bit of hilarity when she laughingly squirmed under a chair we were trying to take upstairs.  

But at any rate, Saturday morning means Aikido (well, every day means Aikido if all's going well).  I'm sad not to be in Hillsborough, NC, at Open Sky for our morning class (going on right now!) but I'm heading into Philly to train with Donovan Waite Sensei.  Looking forward to it.  

I'll still be working out how to group these posts so there's some order to them, but now, I just need to post something to begin to get in the groove.  So here I am, posting something...

...in the groove.

Labels: aikido, family, mom, nanny, open sky, tom, website