In my class and school, in the local neighbourhood, in any social circle I had to be in, I was an outsider - sometimes shunned (or even bullied), sometimes merely tolerated as someone who's there, but not a true part of the group.
Because of this, I had very few friends and none of them were truly close. None of them sought my presence for any reason. My social life, as a result, was almost nonexistent.
Until three years ago.
I was at conflict with someone from my gymnasium (Polish middle school equivalent) back then, which arrived at a violent conclusion. I was ambushed, pinned down, and forced with violence to never anger the attacker again.
My parents saw in this a danger to my future and concluded that it was time for a wake-up call. An ultimatum was placed before me. I had to choose between joining an Aikido club or living the rest of my life offline, without a computer of my own.
My first reaction was strongly emotional. I threw a tantrum and chose the latter option in my immature rage. Only after my mind cleared did I realize that the first option is much less harmful for me.
On my second training session in the club, I met the leader of the club, master of Aikido - Sensei. More than a distant teacher, he was very human and very sociable, full of wisdom and wit. His guidance eventually further encouraged me to train dilligently, though I was still slightly resistant to the idea of training there.
Over the years, I started acquainting myself with other practicioners - many of them slightly younger than me. I met people who I occasionally had contact with on trainings and I talked with them.
None of them shunned me or merely tolerated my presence. I felt accepted.
Every year in the summer, the Aikido club organized a camp trip in a remote area - several days of frequent Aikido trainings combined with other terrain activities, games and social interaction. The kids and youths of the camp were split up into groups by age, each marked by a colour. I was assigned to the oldest group - the black group, led by Sempai Piotr ("sempai" in our club's case is someone adult with a high rank in Aikido, instructor, trainer and leader capabilities)
One that would soon be known as the Blacks.
The group grew close together, eventually united under a banner, with a whole microculture of its own, memes and all. We started meeting each other after the camp on trainings. However, the real beginning was soon after, once a new kind of trip was announced for the youths of the club - the Episode I (inspired by the Star Wars theme we adopted during the camp), a journey into the Beskid mountains.
Soon after this, we met for the first time in a major shopping mall - Centre "Arkadia" - in north Warsaw. The meetings grew more frequent. People started changing their main dojos for training (there are several dojos in Warsaw owned by our club). With every Episode, with every camp through these three years, we grew together, meeting more often and often on various occasions. The group grew around a core... a core that I belonged to, together with two of my friends.
To this day, nothing could shake this unity. Our group grew - recently a split became necessary between the younger and older members of the group, to make organizing easier and to provide us with challenges suited to each age group. Even despite the split, we are still united. Two more Sempais were introduced into the Blacks - Sempai Paweł and Agnieszka.
And among the Blacks...
I am not shunned. I am not outside. I am at the very core of the group, among friends who are almost like comrades. Among the Blacks, I have also made true and close friends - one of them has even told me outright that I am their best friend.
I still cannot fully comprehend and accept this fact as normal and not completely unbelievable and incredible - that there are people who actually seek my presence in their group, in their lives, who wish to speak to me, to whom I am important to some degree.
All around me are normal people to whom such social circles are completely natural and normal, but to me the Blacks are a gift, a miracle.
I don't really care if this all sounds idealistic to the point of dripping faggotry all over my manliness. Sappy, rose-tinted and long as this may be, this compilation and these feelings are something that lived in my mind for quite a while, spilling over to my private, paper diaries, shaping themselves up as a blog post I didn't have a place to publish on - until now.
The title is a shout-out to Neurosis this time, another band whose music I highly enjoy.
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