back from hiatus

I'm back from a month long hiatus.  I was traveling for work the week after my last post, and then Thanksgiving and I wasn't feeling 100% to go back just quite yet.  In that time I did some soul searching and kind of realized that as much as I liked judo, I wasn't happy. The club was too focused on the sport and competition side of judo and was neglecting the roots of the art (that and I wasn't too fond of the injuries that I was getting).  They didn't really have a structured curriculum other than the book, Kodokan Judo.

I think I did what I had originally set out to do: take judo for about a year to work on my throws.  I know that my throws have improved significantly since I started and that I have a new appreciation for randori and training with full resistance.

That being said, when I decided to pursue judo, I was making a choice between judo and aikido.  Last night I went to my first aikikai aikido class.  I admit that I had walked in with some preconceptions about aikido, but I tried to check them at the door. I walked out of the dojo after class a little bit disenchanted, but after talking about my experience with -=R, I felt that I had not truly given it a fair shot.  I'm going to go again later this week and take in another class and see what happens.