I receive a lot of junk mail from clients and friends and for the most part quickly delete it based on nothing more than the subject line of the email.  Every once in a while tho' I run across something worth passing on.  This one concerns why one should stay on the mat and get focused on training.

"A Short Tale" by Unknown Author

A wealthy old lady decides to go on a photo safari in Africa, taking her faithful poodle named Cuddles along for the company.

One day the poodle starts chasing butterflies and before long Cuddles discovers that he's lost.  Wandering about, he notices a leopard heading rapidly in his direction with the intention of having lunch.

The old poodle thinks, "Oh,oh!  I'm in deep doo-doo now!"  Noticing some bones on the ground close by, he immediately settles down to chew on the bones with his back to the approaching cat.  Just as the leopard is about to leap the old poodle exclaims loudly, "Boy, that was one delicious leopard!  I wonder if there are any more around here?"

Hearing this, the young leopard halts his attack in mid-stride and as a look of terror comes over him he slinks away into the trees.  "Whew!" says the leopard, "That was close!  That old poodle nearly had me!"

Meanwhile, a monkey who had been watching the whole scene from a nearby tree figures he can put this knowledge to good use and trade it for protection from the leopard.  So off he goes but the old poodle sees him heading after the leopard with great speed and figures that something must be up.  The monkey soon catches up with the leopard, spills the beans, and strikes a deal for himself with the leopard.

The young leopard is furious at being made a fool of and says, "Here monkey, hop on my back and see what's going to happen to that conniving canine!"

Now the old poodle sees the leopard coming with the monkey on his back and thinks, "What am I going to do now?", but instead of running, the dog sits down with his back to his attackers pretending he hasn't seen them yet.  Just when they get close enough to hear, the old poodle says, "Where's that damn monkey?  I sent him off an hour ago to bring me another leopard!"

Moral of this story ..........

Age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill.

Or, put another way, long-term training and "mat seasoning" develops your instincts in ways that "book-learning" and intellectualizing cannot.  You begin to notice things that you wouldn't otherwise pay attention to and the better we are at noticing everything around us, the more developed our instincts are, and the more capable we become at making the appropriate decision for any given circumstance.

Developing confidence in our Aikido skills allows us to calmly sit back and make intuitive evaluations instantaneously in situations that to us merely resemble another dojo training scenario; but that to other, untrained and lessser-skilled, non-Aikido players is utter chaos and frightening in the extreme.

Come to class and train.  There is no other way than exposure and a steady diet of study and practice.

Originally Published September 20, 2008