WOW! WHAT AN AWESOME SEMINAR! For most of you reading this, I'm sure you were there for Ostoff Sensei's incredible seminar. But in case you didn't feel like showing up, I thought I would blog a few words about what you may have missed. If you weren't there, you wouldn't know that weeks before Sensei's arrival, the work had already begun. You missed helping us to design, build, sand, re-sand, stain & re-stain our kamiza. You wouldn't know that Phil Pektas poured his heart into the project. You didn't see him transforming our old, simple Kamiza into a beautiful, new work of art. You wouldn't know that he had the wisdom to take pieces of the old kamiza and use them to build the new one. It probably wouldn't even occur to you that he was following in the tradition of the Shikinen Sengu ceremony; Where Shinto priests tear down their temples and rebuild them, using elements from the old as parts of the new. It wouldn't occur to you that he had started a new tradition. If you weren't there, you missed out on helping us set up the dojo. You wouldn't know how much coordination and effort it took to move nearly Sixty, 55-pound mats from a storage unit across town. You weren't there to help us lay out those mats or to set up the kamiza or select the flowers or collect the seminar fees or make sure there were refreshments. You wouldn't know what selfless teamwork is all about, because you weren't there. If you missed it, you wouldn't know that it was a fantastic turnout. You wouldn't know that we had so many good people training together. You wouldn't have met kind and wonderful people from Seattle, Ohio, New Orleans, Sarasota, Tallahassee, Orlando, and Winter Springs. You weren't there to feel their Ki, you weren't there to blend with it, you simply weren't there. Then after all of the preparation came the seminar itself. Ahhh the seminar.... what words can express a seminar that you missed? I heard a few: Collect, direct, free, accept. Blend, heal, invite, breathe. Trusting, free, subtle, accepting. But these words don't mean anything to you, because you didn't show up. So maybe next time. Maybe you'll come around. Maybe you'll begin a new tradition or be part of a team effort. Maybe you'll meet nice people. Maybe you'll blend. Maybe Aikido will take on a whole new meaning. Maybe you'll be there?