Aikido

Took my fifth aikido class today. I now know the meaning of constant pain.

Being 6'3" and heavy sack of meat doesn't help where gravity is concerned. I've got too much weight on my bones, so much so that trying to do a forward roll only causes my leading arm to bend. In other words, I need to learn how to make my front arm rigid like a roll bar, tuck my head and allow gravity to take over. But after 38 years of learning how to stand up, learning how to move on a horizontal plane is a whole new concept. Fortunately, I know it will come.

On the side of accomplishment, I've executed some fairly complex techniques today with some fluidity, moving faster and faster until I was confident I knew it. Of course, with my memory I will have forgotten it one day from now. That's the beauty of being me with a poor short term memory: everything is new to me the second time around.

The Bear

The bear tattoo. Whether or not it gets incorporated in to another tattoo is still a decision in the making, but I admit I thoroughly like this.

The Tattoo

Tattoo

I've been toying around with this one concept of a tattoo that involves Oðínn's three horned triskele as the center piece (very tribal, very cool) surrounded by annular knotwork. The outer perimeter of the knotwork would have two animal heads meeting while their bodies form the remaining interwoven perimeter. The internal perimeter is also a slim border of knotwork, but not quite sure what just yet. The internal band that makes up the majority of the knotwork is an annular piece based on knotwork borrowed from Lindisfarne Folio 95 [BainI] page 102. This piece in particular has meaning to me because Lindisfarne became known as the first of the Viking invasions of Britain (Northumbria) in 793. It was an Anglo-Saxon monastery founded in 635. My use of it comes as no coincidence: I came from Christian roots, traveled a tangled path and wound up here quite by surprise. In short, Asatru took me by surprise as much as the Vikings had taken Lindisfarne.

I haven't yet decided on what animals to use at the apex but so far horse sticks out. In the above mockup, the double lines on both the inner and outer perimeters are where the knotwork would go.

The runes, starting with the topmost, spell out Starkað followed by the FUÞARK.

The three-horned triskele was chosen because I had an experience a little while ago during a seiðr tha involved the All-Father. I'll leave it at that. Some choose the valknut as a symbol of Oðínn but for me it's the Mead of Inspiration; the drinkings horns fit right in with my beliefs.

Moved..

I gotta admit, blogger.com offers you more customability for a free account than Livejournal does for theirs. Not too bad.

More to come.