Weeks 7 and 8 : Back from layoff

Whew! That was one long layoff. And not totally my fault. Really. First, there’s the French custom of  a 2-week school vacation about every nine weeks. Second, the dojo building is a municipal gym. When school’s out, the gym’s closed (don’t ask why, this is France). So I was going to have a forced layoff of two weeks, anyway. But there’s more.

Then the weather conspired against me. Turns out this winter was one of the coldest, snowiest and downright disagreeable winters in recent memory. When it wasn’t snowing, an icy north wind was blowing. Most times riding my bike, I felt like a survivor of the Titanic. I was constantly freezing and often wet.

Given the weather and it being flu season, it wasn’t surprising that I got sick. Not a full-blown case of the flu, but enough to knock me off the bike and not even think about going to aikido class.

After a miserable time of cold, aching and nose-blowing, I returned to class about two weeks ago. For one class. That’s all I had in me. Since I’d only been training about six weeks before this layoff, I felt like I was almost back to square one.

The most recent class was better. Training with wooden swords was only just this side of awful for me. When it came time to do the same techniques without the swords, they actually seemed easy. Finally, about a half-hour of techniques from a kneeling position really put my old legs through their paces.

So I’m in the game again. It’s going to take a while before I get back into the swing of things, but I’m happy to be training. This old dog ain't about to quit.