Day 49 of writing every day.
Today’s Aikido practice has been cancelled due to health reasons on the side of other participants, so I find myself with a free day I have all to myself. These free days are something I grow more appreciative with how work has been nothing but negative thoughts for me. At the same time the weekend practices are the only times right now that I can get to practice a whole session instead of squeezing in barely thirty minutes and calling that an actual practice session.
Sure, the importance of squeezing in every minute is important if you ask anyone who does coaching or any kind of work related to helping people reach the goals they have. And the fact that I’m willing to rush to the dojo even for just thirty minutes after work is evidence to myself that I care about having Aikido in my life. Please note that this probably wouldn’t happen with any other dojo, though, as the likely response would be, “What are you doing coming to class so late?”
Perhaps it’s the privilege and responsibility of being an instructor as well as handling the documenting of everyday things at the dojo that I’m actually able to even have those thirty minutes. My expectations of if I were just a regular white belt student at another dojo, I’d more than likely be told that while my dedication is commendable, I should try to adjust things so I can come to practice on time as thirty minutes would not be enough to be considered having practiced for that day.
The “First” Passion I Had
Jumping back to my childhood, I was in fourth grade and signed up for the musical instrument learning program. I think the most typical instruments students get to learn are wind instruments like the flute, trumpet, clarinet, etc. Brass and wood wind bands were quite typical to see at schools of all grades. I remember that everyone would refer to them as the “school band” and not in the sense of a rock band but usually around ten students at least, and close to a class-sized band at most.
I, however, chose the violin. It wasn’t because of the Asian parent thing where having their kid learn to play the violin—a graceful instrument played by virtuosos—would show how talented their strictly raised children were. I just thought with only four strings, it’d be easy to learn and play.
There’s no way a kid will know they’re talented at something unless the adults involved say something. I recalled only learning to hold the bow properly, getting my fingers in the correct where colored tape was to show the position of the notes, and how to read the musical notations and play it on the violin.
It was during the open house kind of thing at school where parents get the chance to speak with teachers that the “band” teacher spoke with my mom and said I had talent and recommended getting private lessons. She even had a teacher to refer me to.
Taking Private Lessons
I was quite fortunate that my mom was willing to spend time and money on me for the private lessons. I wasn’t the only kid at school who picked up the violin, but I think with private lessons, my talent with it really shone and later in life I proved to be one of the better violinists who had the chops to play with the most talented ones that had been learning since they were big enough to hold a violin.
As a kid, I thought playing the violin was one of my passions. I was learning and improving at a really fast rate that amazed my violin private teacher early on. The weekly lessons meant I had to practice at home to make the sacrifices my mom made to be worth it. After all, she was working full-time and made us dinner when she got home, and then we’d go off to the lesson.
My mom drove close to half an hour one way to get us from home to the teacher’s house. Paying for each lesson meant she was making a budget especially for me in our single income family. And every lesson she’d sit on the small sofa my violin teacher had made available for parents, and watched as the lesson from start to end, then we’d drive home.
I don’t think my mom ever really got to enjoy any hobbies of her own that most of us need to stay sane. I don’t think I could do the schedule she had raising my brothers and I, but perhaps she enjoyed being able to spend time with us and treasured being able to present in watching us learn.
Anyways, after the private lessons began, I started learning songs with the Suzuki Violin Method that my teacher taught students by. I could memorize and play usually in a week by when my next thirty-minute lesson came. Some songs proved to be a challenge and took me two weeks to get properly memorized. Rarely did any song take longer than that for me to memorize, but it did frustrate me when I found myself not able to get it right by the next lesson.
The drive to the lesson would often have the recording of the songs that were sold separately from the book at the time, if I remember correctly. Which reminds me that my mom also spent money buying strings, the violin method books and CD recordings, and occasional supplementary drill books. Before we went to bed, my mom would also play the recording to encourage me to learn the songs by hearing.
Even some professional musicians admit to hating practice but needing to get it done. When I got frustrated that I still couldn’t get a song memorized and played just right, I would tell my mom that I’m not going to play as well as the recording. I think I practiced maybe half an hour regularly and maybe close to an hour when I got older on good days.
The weight of how much my learning the violin must have cost in time and money never really hit me until I think back as an adult. While I enjoyed getting better at playing the violin, something contradictory about my not liking having others listen to me—because everything is practice until you’re on the stage—kind of made it hard to like the act of playing and practicing at home when I started to grow more self-conscious as an adolescent.
Distractions are a great enemy to success and the entertainment I found with gaming and the occasional TV cartoons collided with practice.
At times, Aikido was merely something I happened to get enrolled in with my brother after I got bullied near the end of summer school of third grade. Saturday mornings were when classes took place but that overlapped with the morning cartoons I’d like to watch, making me feel like going to Aikido was making me miss out on cartoons and I had to choose one or the other because I couldn’t have both.
The most motivated kids that I knew who loved playing the violin and other musical instruments could think ahead and outside the box. They’d seek out music not part of what their private lessons taught by, and some were in youth orchestras that they auditioned get in and practice with on weekends. I could only push myself to go thirty minutes or more on motivated days, but when it came to gaming, it was no problem to keep going before an hour had passed and my turn on the shared gaming computer was up.
When I see how much I care about Aikido now versus my behavior as a kid regarding violin and Aikido, I can’t help feeling regret that my time was not used wisely. I did well in school and got straight A’s a lot, something my brothers didn’t do. In terms of evaluation standards of public school education, I was doing great, but I can’t help but feel it was all a misguided lie when I’m writing this entry as a college educated adult with Japanese/English fluency who is earning below average wages and working awful hours that don’t allow me to enjoy the one thing I love most about my life in Japan, which is Aikido as practiced at my dojo.
I’ll keep writing more when I have more time, but it’s time to call it a day and deal with the present.
Thanks for reading!
One Chance Works 