This post is in English, so my friends that can't read Portuguese will be able to understand it. By the way, my English is not that good, so there will be, most likely, mistakes. Sorry for that, and hope you don't mind.
小野先生、大城さん、宮田さん、合気道クラブの皆さん、まだ日本語で書けないですみません。
Since I can remember I always was fascinated by martial arts. Of course, some decades ago in a small town in Brazil's countryside, a boy did not have much opportunity to put this fascination to work. Specially a boy from a not so wealthy family. Even so, I convinced my parents to let me take a few classes in the only Karate dojo in the town. My grandmother made my karate-gi taking as model the gi of a colleague. (I love my grandmother. She is the closest thing to a guardian angel that I know.) I didn't train for long, before the first exam (that must be paid, of course) my parents said I would have to give up the classes. It was too expensive for them.
It was some 10 years until I could train any martial art again. After moving to Vitória, the capital of my state, I got to know Tae Kwon Do, a Korean martial art that I had never heard about before. I loved it. It was very dynamic and used kicks a lot. I was good at kicking. I trained with master Hong (a real Korean master, former army's captain) for one year. But he closed his dojo, and I changed to train in another gym. Tae Kwon Do has 10 grades (from 10 to 1, being 10th the lowest) before black-belt. I trained hard for 3 years, and was 3rd grade. Only 2 exams left before black-belt. I even participated in a contest. Not very successfully. I was heavy-weight, i.e. over 78 Kg. Thing is that my opponent was, of course, also heavy-weight. I was 80.5 Kg and he was 117 Kg. He stroked me with a punch and I lost a tooth and the fight. But even without a great performance in the contest I was happy and training hard. Maybe too hard. In one training session I hurt my right leg really bad. Bad enough to make me go through physiotherapy for 6 months, and even today, 14 years after that I still feel the muscle every single time I stretch. It was the end of my Tae Kwon Do days. For years after that I could not raise my leg enough for a decent kick. I always practice stretching, so today I can kick pretty well again, but it took me a decade to recover. (OK, maybe with more physiotherapy I had recovered faster.)
Then, I saw a demonstration of Aikido. There is a nikkei community center in Vitória, and a sensei of Aikido had moved to the city and started to teach a very few students. No more than 5 I think. The sensei was old, about 80 years old, and died about 4 years after he started teaching in Vitória. Now his former students were trying to keep his legacy alive opening dojos, and did a public presentation to promote it. Honestly, I did not thought, at the time, that the "throwing people flying in the air using their own power" would work for real, but decided to give it a try, since I could not do almost any other martial art due to my leg injury. To my own surprise I found myself being thrown in the tatami many times in the first class, and started to think that maybe that thing could really work. After 3 or 4 classes I had been hooked. I was loving the Aikido classes almost as much as I loved the Tae Kwon Do ones. I was luck. 3 former students of the old sensei opened dojos. I choose the one of Kabazawa sensei, a small Japanese guy that moved to Brazil some 15 years before. He had done judo since ever and learned Aikido with the old sensei after adult. He was the one with the more dynamic and energetic style from the 3 students that opened dojos.
In Brazil it takes much more time to get black-belt in Aikido than here in Japan. Usually you have to train seriously for 4½ to 5 years before you can be a shodan (black-belt 1st dan), so I trained for almost 3 years and was still 3rd kyu (the grading is from 5th kyu to 1st kyu, being 5th kyu the lowest), and preparing to do the 2nd kyu exam. By that time I had already finished college and got married. I had a job (for some time 3 jobs, actually), and me and Karin (my wife) was both working a lot. I started skipping Aikido classes because of the work, then I got a teaching job in a private college and could not go to the training anymore. After that I still tried to go back training, this time early in the morning. Trained for about 6 months, but my work schedule changed and I quitted the training once again.
After that a lot of things happened and I end up here in Japan. Here they have a lot of clubs or circles in the university. For the most different things: singing, dancing, playing drums, and, of course, for many kinds of martial arts. I went looking for a club of Aikido. I found the biggest one first (I discovered later that there are 3 clubs of Aikido). It is a good club, but they train from Monday to Friday, from 17:50h to 19:00h. This is complicated for me because I usually have meeting with my adviser at this time. But, then I found out about some "Competition Aikido Club". That sounded strange at first because I always heard that there is no competition in Aikido. But the time of the training was excellent, Tuesday and Thursday from 19:30h to 21:00h. I went to watch a training class and the people at the club were so kind and friendly. And it was a very dynamic style as I like it. In the end of the training there is always randori-renshu, which is almost like the fight training I used to do in Tae Kwon Do. I felt really well at the training. That was a little more than 2 years ago. I have being training almost without interruption during this time, and the people in the Aikido club are basically the only Japanese friends I have. (I stay most of the time alone in my lab.)
Last Monday, December 24th, 2007, I did my shodan-shinsa, the black-belt exam. And I passed the exam. I am black-belt now. Of course, a lot of people are black-belt. Of course, it is not that big deal, and it is just the beginning. After that there is 2nd dan, 3rd dan, etc. And a shodan is no more than a beginner that have mastered the basics. But to me this black-belt means a lot. More than I can explain by words. I know that may sound foolish, after all, as I said, it is not so big deal, and there are a dozen other black-belts on our club only. But I don't care if it sounds foolish. Having got this, having earned this black-belt, has a taste of accomplishment, of self-realization. I do feel great about it, and I have so many people to be thankful. For so many things. To Zé Carlos, my Tae Kwon Do instructor. To Kabazawa sensei, my first Aikido sensei. To Ono sensei for his support here in Japan. To Ôki-sempai that trained so many times with me and was my partner in the exam. To all the kind friends in the Kyogi Aikido Club. And to Karin that was my support, my sparring (poor Karin), that was always there for me.
Ôki-san, my sempai and partner in the exam, and me. Ono-sensei had to leave before the end of the exam, so he is not in the photo, but he was there too.
After the exam, as it was Christmas' eve, I had a dinner with some friends. I was so happy that I drank and ate a little too much. The next day my stomach and my head remembered me that moderation, even in happiness, is a virtue.
