My First Experience With Aikido:  As I mentioned before, I did not start my Martial Arts "career" in Aikido.  I started in a form of Karate.  I noticed early on that the level of concentration and discipline was very low, many students joked around or practiced techniques they were not supposed to.  The workouts were not very challenging physically, and there were many classes where I didn't even break a sweat.  I was discouraged because I had seen other classes run in a much more disciplined way.  After about a year of this, I was informed that a new teacher was coming to the dojo to teach Aikido.  I decided that I would give it a try.  On the first day of classes, I was about a minute late for the class, and as I opened the curtains a crack, I was amazed at the site before me.  The Sensei was in the middle of a circle, which was made up of all the students.  Most of them I recognized from the Karate classes, but there was something very different about this.  They were all very serious, concentrating deeply and even though the class was only about two minutes into it, several of them had sweat on their foreheads.  The teacher looked at me and waved for me to come in.  I joined the circle, not knowing that that class would be the hardest one I'd ever taken.  But that first glance, seeing the Sensei in the middle of the circle and the students around him like that, I realized then that this is what I had been looking for.  I have not had many "spiritual" experiences in my life, but I would have to describe this as something more than a hunch, or gut feeling.  I knew as I looked in, that this was what I'd been searching for, and that this is where I would be for a very long time. --By Evan Wainberg

A Realization:  Not long after I started Aikido I had a conversation with my Sensei that stays with me to this day.  We were in the change room after a class, and after a while he said, "You know, I noticed that when you are performing a technique, you mess up or something, but instead of trying again you just say to yourself, 'oh well'.  I am guessing that you do this in other places too, not just here."  We talked a little more, and after he left I started thinking.  I thought about what he'd said all the way home, because it had really started me thinking, because, well, he was right.  I had always messed up on tests in school, and said 'oh well' instead of what I should have done, namely going and correcting it, and the same was true in Aikido.  I later realized that it was not exactly what he had said, I was very used to others telling me to do things, like my parents, but now whenever they said something like that I just nodded in agreement so they'd be quiet.  But my sensei, someone who had only known me for a few months, who I barely knew, had basically told me what I'd been doing my whole life, messing up and not fixing it.  I seriously changed my attitude to Aikido and the rest of my life after that, and it was definitely for the better. I gained much respect for my Sensei after that, and since then we have become more than student and teacher, we have become very good friends --By Evan Wainberg

Something I May Have Taught Someone Else:  In one of the classes where our Sensei couldn't make it, I was teaching the class, and we were doing some exercises with Ukemi. I was holding a Jo and swinging it close to the ground, slowly, and the students had to roll over it.  One of them missed a couple of times and was tapped on his leg.  He was perhaps frustrated, and after the class he asked me: "I don't understand why we do this, I mean, when are we ever going to need to roll over a Jo?"  I looked at him and said:"You can roll fine without the Jo, right?"  He said "Yeah".  I said "Then that's why." --By Evan Wainberg

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