By Aldrich Sensei
It's been about six years since I moved to New England. Coming from the NYC metropolitan area, where streetlights, sidewalks, and population density are normal parts of everyday life, Connecticut has been quite the adjustment. There are dirt roads in places, grocery stores that close before 9 PM and don't open until after 7 if you're lucky, and a whole different pace of life that this Jersey girl wasn't exactly prepared for.
At one point, my husband got so tired of hearing me complain about living here that I had to remind him, "I love you more than I hate Connecticut." I'm sure this isn't an entirely foreign conversation for couples who have relocated for one another.
One of the other things I've had to get used to is the weather. I live by the water, and while my Jersey roots refuse to call it the shore, I've reluctantly accepted the shoreline. The weather can be a little funky, and one of the things I've noticed is how quickly the fog can roll in. Roads that you know like the back of your hand suddenly become difficult to navigate. You know where you're going, but you can't necessarily see where you're headed.
I bring this up because I've had quite the on-mat/off-mat experience this past year. As many of you know, I suffered not one, but two concussions. It's a personal hell I wouldn't recommend to anyone, and more than a year later, I'm still not 100% myself.
One of the strange things about this experience is that I've been able to continue running the dojo full-time. I remember struggling to teach a weird version of nikkyo I rarely do, but everything else is second nature. Most of what I do, I don't really have to think about anymore. I've been doing it long enough that I can rely on years of experience to get through the day.
But there's a toll that comes with that.
While I could continue doing the things I already knew, I wasn't really able to explore, grow, or experience much of anything new. Loud or crowded spaces were my downfall. Seminars, which are normally something I look forward to, became barely enjoyable. Conversations with friends were often cut short because I couldn't handle them. Recalling words or having tact was out the window. It wasn't until recently that I could train for more than two hours, and even then, it was with kid gloves on.
It wears on your soul to feel that disconnected, especially when the things you're disconnected from are the things you love most.
I've struggled to explain what this past year has felt like, but the closest comparison I can make is driving in a thick fog. You're moving, but slowly. The thicker it gets, the more overwhelmed you can be. You're putting in a lot of effort just to keep going, and sometimes it feels like you're getting nowhere. You know the road is there, but you can't see enough of it to feel confident about where you're headed.
Recently, I decided to take a Tennis 101 lesson. It was about as basic as you can get. I had three basic movements to learn, each with two parts, and my only job was to observe and practice the basics in front of me. There was no expectation that I should know anything, no responsibility to anyone else, and no pressure to do anything beyond what I was learning.
I absolutely loved it.
I loved the challenge, I loved learning something new, and I loved being a beginner. I left that lesson feeling alive in a way I hadn't felt in quite some time. I said to a friend, "I feel like I'm not in my fog."
That friend asked me a question that made me stop and think: "When was the last time you felt that way about Aikido?" Side note: With my dojo's recent transition, everything feels like it's going nowhere. It's been killer to my soul. I find myself suffocating when I try to do anything.
It took me a moment, but I realized it was when I went to New York City to train last September.
On the drive home, I felt alive. I remember thinking, "When can I go train again?" That itch, that call... the die-hards know. When you find your path and nothing can stop you. It was a feeling I hadn't experienced in a long time, and for a little while, the fog seemed to lift.
So what does all of this have to do with driving in New England?
Here's the thing about fog. Sometimes it just happens. You can plan your trip, check the weather, and know exactly where you're going, but that doesn't mean you won't encounter fog along the way. And when you do, what happens next?
We don't blast the radio, start texting (don't text and drive people!), and continue driving at the speed limit as if nothing has changed.
We slow down, adjust our lights, eliminate distractions, and look for anchor points. For me, those anchor points are the lines on the road, and I focus on breathing. When I can't see very far ahead, I focus on the lines because they're something reliable that I can follow. I don't need to see ten miles down the road to know where I am right now. I just need enough visibility to safely navigate what's directly in front of me. Even with the concussion for a while, night driving felt impossible.
I've been thinking about how much that applies to life and to Aikido.
When things become difficult, whether it's an injury, a personal struggle, or simply a period when life isn't going the way we expected, our instinct is often to push harder. We want to get back to where we were, accomplish what we used to accomplish, and keep up with the pace we've set for ourselves. But sometimes the conditions have changed, and pretending they haven't doesn't make the road any safer.
Sometimes we need to slow down and find our anchor points.
For me, those anchor points have been the basics. In tennis, it was three simple things to learn. Similar to my trip to New York, it was returning to familiar movements and allowing myself to be present in my training without worrying about anything beyond what was directly in front of me.
Neither experience magically fixed the challenges I've been dealing with. I'm still not 100%, and there are days when the fog feels just as thick as ever. But those experiences reminded me of something I think we sometimes forget, especially in martial arts.
We spend a lot of time talking about perseverance, discipline, and pushing through adversity. Those are important qualities, but so are patience, awareness, and knowing when to adjust. We wouldn't criticize someone for slowing down when driving through thick fog. We'd probably question their judgment if they didn't. Yet we can be incredibly hard on ourselves when we need to slow down in other areas of our lives.
I'm writing this partly to share my experience and partly as a reminder to give ourselves a little grace. I don't have some grand revelation about how to make the fog disappear. If I did, I'd certainly be using it myself. What I am learning is that I don't have to approach every day as if the conditions are perfect, and I don't have to measure my progress against what I was capable of doing before.
Sometimes the best thing we can do is recognize the conditions we're in, adjust accordingly, and focus on the next stretch of road.
