Some progress
Yesterday, for the first time in a long while I had an aha! experience in training. (“Aha! experience” – that word actually exists? In German we’re using exactly the same combination, how funny… ^^) I’ve been trying to soften my forward rolls on the right-hand side and to make them less noisy for a few weeks now. There seems to be a part of my pelvic bone I always hit when rolling, causing a slight audible bump. At least I know the cause, but right now I’m not able to consciously change it. However, yesterday all of a sudden one forward roll did not make a sound at all, so I guess I’ve done something right. I just wonder what it was… =)
I also noticed another improvement: several months ago, we had studied katate kosa tori kokyunage irimi (a diagonal wrist grab) slowly, step by step. Since that time we had repeated it often, but not as slowly as back then. When, yesterday, we did repeat it once more in slow motion, the difference to before was stunning. My arm has become more stable, and the technique itself feels … rounder, not as constrained as before.
Don’t get me wrong, I love training, regardless of whether I notice improvements or not – these things are just an additional bonus… 
Eric Holcomb said,
December 2, 2008 at 8:58 am
“Aha!” I *love* that feeling. Those moments are so rare that I replay them in mind over-and-over hoping to squeeze out any remaining drops of understanding.
One of my favorite “aha” experiences was about shomen uchi ikyo. I had been puzzling over a statement made by an instructor from another school (I respected him but could not train there so we talked Aikido a lot). He had said that the key to the perfect ikyo was CONFIDENCE and then executed a breezily perfect ikyo as though it were nothing. With that in mind, I was puzzling about how to aply it in my own Aikido. In fact, I got so distracted that when my uke started to strike I was a moment late in my thinking — but my body did the right thing anyway — pivot of the hips, extended arms, etc … and plonk! the most effortless ikyo I had ever executed in my life. My uke looked up with shock and asked “Where did that come from? How did you do it?” That “aha” has influenced every ikyo I have performed since.
Enjoy your “aha”, use it and grow with it until you have more. Share those too please!
Happy rolling,
e.