I forbindelse med et utvekslingsprosjekt mellom Dimitris Farmakidis (Aikidolærer på Hadeland folkehøgskole) og Thorsten Shoo fra Seishinkai i Tyskland, besøkte Mirjam Fisher folkehøgskolen og skrev om hennes møte med norske Aikido`ka, elever på folkehøgskolen, og om norsk gjestfrihet.
Mirjam bodde i en måned på skolen og fikk mulighet å trene Aikido med Dimitris og å instruere Kashima på skolen i denne perioden. To av Dimitris elever drar til Frankfurt i Mai for å trene videre med Thorsten Schoo.
I have arrived well and am accommodated in a guest room that has really been furnished with love. It’s located on the first floor of the student dormitories. It’s equipped with its own small kitchen and bathroom. Little picture-frames with sayings of the Buddha and the Dalai Lama hang on the walls. On the sink of the kitchenette I found a well equipped tea tray and a welcome note, expressing the hope that in moments of need I would find a possibility here to relax a bit. That was very touching, tired as I was.
Already on the following day, during the first training, I was presented with a ‘training gift’ by Dimitris: The Law of Least Effort. I will cover this topic at a later time.
Just after a short break I already had to pack my ‘survival-pack’ for Oslo and off we went to participate in the New Year’s seminarof Bjørn Eirik Olsen, 6th Dan, Shihan of Norway. This seminar provided me with a lot of positive surprises of all kinds. Most of these are only precious for myself for a start. A few conceptions and experiences, I had collected until now, could fall into the right place during this seminar. It’s not so easy to report about that. But there have also been some topics about which I want to blog later on. Just a remark up front: Although Bjorn Eirik Olsen’s Aikido looks formally different than the style we are used to train at Seishinkai, it lives from the same principles. And if you succeed in opening yourself thoroughly, you can easily train to execute the seemingly different forms until have fully grasped them.
I’ve also been welcomed very amiably at Tenshinkan in Oslo. It was a nice reunion with some of the people I had already met in 2011 on the two seminars when I had accompanied Thorsten. With others it was a nice and interesting first encounter. Actually I am very impressed by the friendly and open hearted attitude that I meet here wherever I go. The teachers and students at HAFOS are also very kind and amenable. Especially meeting the students and the even younger people from Dimitris’ external dojo at Brandbu is a real challenge for me. From their plain and frank openness you are thrown back onto yourself.
Apart from that, we have got snow here. Finally! Although I have been told that it’s also too warm for Norwegian winters. Yesterday someone of Dimitris’ Dojo told me, that unfortunately it had been thawing the week before I came and showed me some pictures of trees that were really thoroughly covered in thick layers of snow. Fantastic! Sadly at the moment I can’t provide you with this kind of views. Only with this icy waterfall, which I have seen in Oslo near Tenshinkai. By the way in Brandbu the weather is quite unusual. There is a dense high fog lying above the valley, that keeps everything below a low white cover. On the streets lies a thick layer of ice and snow. The people here live with it very naturally, while this would definitely present exceptional circumstances in Germany. Furthermore twilight sets in quite early. It starts at about 15:30, so that I keep on getting christmassy feelings from the view of all those illuminated houses in the neighborhood. This afternoon on the way from the main house to the students’ dorms this occupied me so much, that I would almost have stepped onto a cat. I was really surprised by that on behalf of both of us. For my part for the lack of attention. However for the cat I was also surprised at the lack of caution.
After this unpleasant encounter the poor animal ran away very quickly. I fear I have traumatized it very much.
This evening I have also given my first sword lesson at last. It was a nice experience from my viewpoint. Everyone has participated in an incredibly concentrated manner and simply tried everything that I presented to them. On monday evenings it’s always a so called ‘walgvag’ lesson. And there always participate members of Dimitris’ external dojo. There were even children in the group. I’d estimate starting from age seven. It didn’t make a difference at all though. All were incredibly concentrated and receptive.
Finally Dimitris invited me for a late cup of tea. Thorsten knows how intensive that is. Dimitris is a hunter. He always invests a true 100%. Accordingly I go to bed today with even more good and inspiring impressions and hereby wish you a good night!
Every day at least one overwhelming moment.
Depending on attitude and interest the day begins for the students at 8:00 o’clock with the so called morning activity. These are optional activities, which can be offered by any student or guest, who is invited during the year, to any interested student covering whatever topic comes to mind. It can be music, politics, political debate, everything one can imagine. Dimitris meanwhile has asked me, if I also would like to offer something. Today I made up my mind, that I will suggest ‘Grundlagen’ to him. It is a typical feature of Seishinkai Training, and sufficiently general, that it can also be interesting to students outside of the Aikido Class.
Starting at 8:30 there is breakfast. It is served as a buffet, like incidentally all four meals. We get fruit, marmalade, cheese, sausage, fish or porridge with a great choice of dried fruit and almonds. As drinks we can have tea, water or milk, which is kind of a challenge for passionate coffee-drinkers. But people who have their own kitchenette available in their room can naturally acquire the coffee creation of their choice in the nearby Coop-Store (with a red and yellow design here) and stash them in their own cupboard to consume them at their own leisure.
At 8:45 the staff and the prefect meet in the faculty room to discuss the topics of the day in preparation of the morning-meeting, which is mandatory for all 89 students and (present)teachers and starts at 9:15.
The morning meeting is a very special meeting. After the attendance of all students has been verified by a student, who is in charge of this task, and the daily cleaning- and cooking-jobs have been distributed among all students, on mondays and on fridays, all join in the singing of a song. After that important announcements for the day are made, first by the teachers and then by the students. Furthermore there is the Morning-Gift. The cat’s pajamas, if you ask me. One member of the gathering presents something, that he or she wants to share with the whole school. The first two days of the week pieces of music were played. It’s a nice attunement to the day, not only when ‘California Dreaming’ is played. It can also be a joke. Today we had a lot of fun, because one of the students divided us into four groups, according to the four walls we were sitting at. Then he asked us to make a sound according to the hight of his hands, and according to (the intensity and manner) of his movements. Similar to the Laola-wave in a football stadium. It was a lot of fun!
All this only takes half an hour. Around 9:45/10:00 o’clock the actual lessons begin. So it’s Aikido and sword for the Aikido-Class.
During the lesson Dimitris pays a lot of attention to achieve an atmosphere of mutuality, care and reciprocal respect. In the beginning of the session a stick of incense is ignited and everybody who enters the dojo is expected to do zarei in the entrance area first toward the kamiza and then towards the other people already inside the room. Then one student reads a saying out of a little collection of sayings ‘The Art of Peace’ of Morihei Ueshiba (transl. J. Stevens, Shambala Pocket Classics) which he/she wants to share with the group. Then he presents a short personal interpretation of the chosen saying. I would like to share the saying of today with you, because it shows very much of the spirit Dimitris knows to create within the group:
The Art of Peace is based on Four Great Virtues:
Bravery, Wisdom, Love and Friendship, symbolized by Fire, Heaven, Earth and Water.
The interpretation, which impressed me very much, was that only the interaction of all those deeds brings the Art of Peace to perfection. That not a single one of those deeds can achieve this alone. Also during the lesson the image was developed that a cart can only travel as long as it has all of its four wheels. At the end of the lesson the tatami is cleaned every time. Everybody is involved in the task, as the surface is made of plastic. Little moist cloths are distributed among everybody. Each single tatami is then wiped on the knees. People, who have already participated in Inaba Sensei’s seminars will feel reminded of Japanese customs.
The morning lessons ends at 11:45 o’clock. Lunch ensues. It takes place from 11:45 to 12:30. We are served bread, because there is another meal at 15:45. Over here that one is called ‘middag’ and its warm and substantial. The day before yesterday we had salmon or alternatively chicken with rice with a serving of broccoli and carrot salad or optional a vegetarian hotpot of lentils. Yesterday we had salad, full grain rice and white kidney beans in tomato sauce. It was quite tasty, not from the tin, but with a sauce that reminded me pleasantly of aniseed. Finally there is supper from 20:00 to
20:30. At all meals the students, as already mentioned, are responsible for the laying of the tabes, help with the food preparations, as well as they are also in charge of several cleaning jobs, varying from the service of the dishwasher in the kitchen, to vacuum cleaning or wiping of the hallways and so on.
Yesterday the day was influenced by two special gatherings. First the student assembly elected a new prefect. In order to do so the different houses, into which the students are divided, delegate one of their house as a candidate. After a short introductory speech of each candidate the elections were held. Dimitris had a lot of fun when calling out the election sheets, because they had lavishly been decorated with pictures and nicknames for the candidates. Although the elections were held in a relaxed atmosphere everything was achieved in a sufficiently earnest atmosphere as a whole.
The second gathering was held within the respective ‘linje’. That’s how the main subjects are called here. The meetings were held in order to prepare the particular study tour which is pending for the beginning of March. The Aikido Class will be traveling to Japan for ten days. Destinations will be Kyoto and Osaka. The preparation of the tour is accordingly challenging, especially if you take into account that the group consists of thirty people including Dimitris.
This afternoon there were two special events on the schedule again, Allsang (joint singing) and Allmote (main meeting), which are both held regularly on every wednesday. Allsang is a very unique event as well. Actually the better part of the student body meets at 12:30 to sing Norwegian and English songs together. The students at HAFOS seem to share my love for ‘California Dreaming’, because it was, among other songs, actually sung again today. Allmote has a function comparable to the morning meeting. But there is a bit more time designated to it (from 13:00 to 13:45) and it’s headed by the prefects. Whereas the Morning Meeting is definitely influenced by a primary right of speech for the teachers, even though it’s conducted by the students on the organizational level. I am really impressed at the remarkable level of self-discipline at which all meetings are held. Every request for speaking time is signaled by giving a hand signal, and there is enough trust, calm and discipline so that everybody actually waits until he has been given his turn. Furthermore it seems to me that everybody is careful to give his messages in a relaxed manner and not to take up too much time when speaking.
During the meetings of the several houses (of which there are five, if I’ve counted well) I surrendered to the need for some rest and retreated to my room for a bit. I was so tired from the multitude of new impressions, not enough sleep due to the meeting with Dimitris the previous evening, as well as continuing to write this blog afterwards during the night. Furthermore I had been so exhilarated that I had already woken up again after only five hours of sleep (well understanding that I couldn’t go to sleep again in this state).
For this reason I won’t report about the children’s training anymore, which I also witnessed for the first time today too, but wish you all a good night and see you at my next blog!
Yours Mirjam
A wonderful winter walk
I’ve once more spent a wonderful day. The most impressing part of it was the walk on which Ines led me to all her favourite places in the area around Røykenvik, which is a little village in the immediate vicinity of Brandbu. Temperatures are about minus seventeen degrees Celcius at the moment, and Randsfjord is steaming. That’s one of the reasons for the frequent high fogs which I’ve already mentioned. A large part of the area is covered in hoar frost. A cloud hangs above the fjord. The surrounding landscape? Pure sunshine. Sometimes there are small flurries of frost particles in the air. Ines calls it fairy dust. I can easily agree with that. Afterwards we had a cup of delicious tea at Ines’, where we joined by her three daughters (10, 8 and 2
years old), two of whom engaged us in
having to engage us with them. ; )
Finally, after my return to the school we had a very suitable meal. Trøndersodd med Flatbrød, Pork meatballs in a broth with carrots and a very brittle, sweetish tasting thin waver bread. Not for vegetarians, I must concede that. I liked it very much though. Especially after the walk! :
Topping-out Ceremony
Today we are almost at half-time – hard to believe. Naturally the glass is half full. : )
Furthermore today we have been able to execute Kesa Giri thoroughly as a Kata for the first time. In all detail. With all the etiquette, the entire set of movements, Ukitachi and Shitachi. Furthermore it was possible to install a group of four more experienced Uke, who exclusively gave ukemi to all the other practitioners for about a quarter of an hour. This was very fulfilling for me. Maybe it sounds astonishing, that after almost two weeks we have ‘only’ completed Kesa Giri, but I am very proud of our success as well as I am very happy about the development of the group. After all one has to take into account that they haven’t come into touch with Kashima Shin Ryu before. That means that it is possible to build up everything right from the beginning. That is an immensely rewarding task, but it also takes some time.
From the start I have concentrated on internalizing important principles, for instance the upright axis of the body, the active/loaded centre, the sinking of the centre, the emptiness and relaxations of the shoulders, the sinking of the shoulderblades, awareness in mono uchi, the law of least effort, etc. Today for instance I became aware of the fact that I had accidentally disregarded to work on the stability of the hind knee in Seigan. I will take up that thread in the next lesson.
Thanks to the outstanding discipline of the group, their high willingness to concentrate and invest patience, and also thanks to the viridity with which everybody embraces the new and unknown, I am offered a great opportunity to build up Kihon Tachi extensively, profoundly and with a lot of basic work. So today we can ‘celebrate’ ‘topping-out ceremony’, for I believe that the fundament has been prepared to engage in the practise of Kiri Wari, Wari Tsuki and Kurai Tachi at a slightly faster pace. We will take up work on Ashi Barai Uki Bune not until the very end. I estimate this to take up about three lessons. I am really looking forward to all ensuing work and had a lot of fun until now. I am optimistic that it will be possible to continue like this.
The Grundlagen-Training (Basics of Martial Arts) during morning-activity also proofs to be very rewarding to me. Disregarding the fact that the attendance of only five participants is not particularly good, it is still a very good field of learning for me. Because of overlapping interests in regard to the occupation of available practise rooms I had decided that Grundlagen could also be practised on a wooden floor. Therefore on the first morning half an hour before the beginning of the lesson I visited the chosen room and became friends with the tounged flooring. I really enjoyed it and found it very interesting. I was pleased to find out that it is possible to train Grundlagen on a wooden floor even for half an hour or more, also for beginners. Again in these lessons the students prooved to be so concentrated and dedicated to develop their own approach to the ground, that consequentially they didn’t concern themselves with the question if they liked to work on a wooden floor or not. At the least if they have had trouble with that, they had enough selfdiscipline not to let themselves be overwhelmed by that.
Yesterday during the first unit, we have primarily worked directly on the ground. How can we stay close to the ground and move? Furthermore flat-angle Ukemi rolling over the backside of the shoulders, as well as movement around the feet of a partner. Today we have begun with ‘controlled collapsing’. Still mainly on the ground. We had a first introduction to the ‘seismic spine’, worked with the independent movement of single joints like shoulders, ellbows, neck and thoracic spine. Tomorrow I plan on showing ‘controlled collapsing’ from the standing position to the front and the back, and then to continue to practise evasion of single parts of the body when being pushed.
The Art of Peace
THE ART OF PEACE begins with you. Work on yourself and your appointed task in the Art of Peace. Everyone has a spirit that can be refined, a body that can be trained in some manner, a suitable path to follow. You are here for no other purpose than to realize your inner divinity and manifest your innate enlightenment. Foster peace in your own life and then apply the Art to all you encounter.
Morihei Ueshiba, ‘The Art of Peace’ (Transl. J. Stevens, Shambala Pocket Classics)
The Japan-Tour of the Aikidolinja of Hadeland Folkehoyskole
Meanwhile some time has passed since my arrival here, and as so often, when circumstances are new, I haven’t thoroughly comprehended some facts, some I have missinterpreted. For that reason I would like to report about the Japan- Tour of the Aikido-Class once more, especially because there are two videos that can be watched on You Tube about the tour in 2010. This year the participants will visit exactly the same senseis, dojos and places of interest. In addition to a lot of Aikido-Training the group will also participate in a tea-ceremony and a calligrafie demonstration. Furthermore they will have the special pleasure to experience how it is to be dressed in and wearing a traditional kimono. In a country where even a bus ride is a great challenge, everything will become a intensive experience. If you like to have a look at the Japan-Tour 2010 you can follow those two links:
Japantur for Aikidolinja på Vofos 2010 del 1: http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=99OGDEauGv8&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv %3D99OGDEauGv8
Japantur for Aikidolinja på Vofos 2010, del 2: http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?feature=relmfu&v=Ba5Y1cdh7Sw
As I have already mentioned above, I have to correct some mistakes. The Tour will not take ten days, but a whole fortnight. The visit to Osaka was a misunderstanding on my behalf. It’s just the airport of arrival. ; )
In fact these are the stations of the tour:
1) Kyoto Budo Center – Yoko Okamoto Sensei- dort werden auch der Goldene Pavillon und Gion Center besucht.
2) Fukuoka, Kyushu – Morito Suganuma Sensei
3) Shingu, Kumano Juku Dojo – Motomichi Anno Sensei
I think it’s quite easy to imagine what an exhilarating experience the tour can become for all participants. I wish a wonderful and inspiring journey to all participants of the Japan- Tour 2013 of the Aikidolinja!
Today I have been asked, about the difference between teaching at Folkehøyskole and in a common Dojo. That presents a welcome opportunity to speak a bit about the difference that I see between daily training at Seishinkai and the unusual daily life and training here at Brandbu.
One fact becomes very obvious at once. The stay at Folkehoyskole, even at a duration of one or two years, presents exceptional circumstances for anybody. The question that poses itself to everybody, who spends a certain amount of time here, is: Which of all the valuable impulses and ideas I receive here am I able to take with me? Can I sustain this high saturation with ideas, ideals and potentials myself? Can I nourish myself in the end? Can I generate the high potential I have encountered here myself?
Beside all the valuable technical knowledge, which we are receiving, the ultimate aim of our stay at Brandbu is especially the development of our human and our spiritual capability. It’s all about our very particular potential as creative and loving beings.
For me the school has especially functioned like a precious accumulation complex which is able to sow new seeds into fresh soil as well as to nourish seeds which are already in the ground so that they germinate. In retrospective the most important aspect for me was to recognize the valuable potential within my own personal work. It was important to realize the true value of certain attitudes and skills.
In the encounter with the young adults here, who are just starting into their autonomy and who, as we like to say so readily, still have all of their life in front of them, I came to realize strongly how precious many of the skills and abilities are, which I have acquired during my life in the meantime. I have increasingly come to see, that it is important for me, to finally trustfully rely on the quality of my hitherto aquired experience and to recognize the locations and conditions in which I will be able to transform my potential to the best advantage of myself and my immediate human surroundings. This includes my personal further advancement.
I do wish very much, that the group of people, as whom we have gathered at Seishinkai, will find a way to develop a similarly intensive potency as I was allowed to experience myself during my stay at Folkehoyskole.
In Seishinkai I perceive myself in a community of soul mates. Furthermore I do think that together we have a high potential to generate positive activity in our surroundings. It would be wonderful if we could evolve such a generator ourselves, who can bring forth or make visible the potential in other searching (mostly young) human beings, and who can support them in their strife to mature and to strengthen themselves. After all we already carry those elements within our name: SEI – potential, SHIN – spirit, KAI – companionship.
Chi Kung, The Law of Least Effort and the Sword
My stay draws to a close soon and in the meantime I have also digested the new impressions enough that I feel able to cover the Aikido-Training here. It goes without saying, that I don’t want to talk about the known, but about the particular aspects of the training here, which make it a new experience, an enriching encounter. One of the characteristics of Dimitris training is that for warm up he quite frequently starts with Chi Kung exercise. The routines he practises originate from Zhang Zhuang Chi Kung, a type of standing qigong. Typical for this kind of practise are the quite static, standing postures which require a deep release of inner tensions. In regard to achieving a relaxed and at the same time charged state, this Chi Kung is very demanding, yet very effective for a further development of one’s own martial art as well. As already mentioned most postures are practised statically. You pass quite some time standing still with only little or no movement at all. The practise is taking place invisibly, within the breathing, by relaxing single parts of the musculature and by reorganising ineffective holding structures.
Accordingly, an important keyword provided for the training by Dimitris was: The Law of Least Effort. For example the musculature of the legs when standing is supposed to expend the least holding effort possible. You stand as it were with the force of your hara. Another feeling would be to be carried by the ground.
My personal challenge lay in ’emptying’ the calves when having relatively relaxed thighs. A question of releasing, not of doing. I felt clearly that within these exercises the sky-earth- principle is hidden. While on the one hand you root yourself into the ground, at the same time you strive up inwardly.
The second important keyword with regard to this aspect of the training was aimed at the use of the arms: Weight underside, the weight on the bottom side. You can’t express any better that especially the elbows are supposed to be heavy. The request weight underside evokes a very appropriate image of the passive work that you invest. Once more this is especially an awareness-training which mainly bussies itself with releasing instead of achieving. This kind of practise is not only a good basis for Aikido, but for sword-practise as well. The principles of relaxed extremities, empty joints, abundance in the center, and the sky-earth- principle lead to a stable stance and at the same time free, effective and quick movements in kenjutsu as well.
With regard to my task to teach Kihon Dachi here, these aspects have become an important foundation for a very rich exchange between Dimitris and myself. Using etikette and awareness-training to follow the Aikido-‘way’ If you join an Aikido-Dojo, aside from the discipline, you also always choose the charakter of the teacher or teachers who lead this dojo. Although it is not apparent at the beginning of the aikido career, it becomes quite obvious the longer you train, that it is impossible to hide or pretend on the tatami.
This becomes very obvious in Dimitris class. He really doesn’t just teach some fancy martial art with a bit of spiritual dressing. Instead his trademark is a high dedication to an education for life and an encounter with oneself. Any carelessness, any physical or mental slackness is stalled as strongly as possible by the particular style of the training and a very careful implementation of etikette into the training. Nevertheless it is also taken care of the particular capacity of every individual student. Every minute Dimitris works at keeping the students in steady contact with their particular being, thinking, their perceptions and actions. This training doesn’t stop when leaving the tatami, but it concerns their whole school-life. This showed especially in the occasional friction that occurred concerning the preparations for the study tour to Japan, when a couple of times it prooved necessary to impress upon the students their mutual responsabilty for each other.
As mentioned, on the tatami one aspect of this training is etikette. Evidently, to bow when entering the Dojo, serves to focus one’s own regardfulness as well as it serves as an atunement to the training. Then in a place, with regard to further entering people, you do zarei first in direction of Kamiza, then in the direction of Shimoza. Everybody who already stays inside the dojo is expected to bow in return. This way you show each other mutual respect as well as you are obliged to stay in a condition of hightened awareness and focus as soon as you have entered the dojo. A further ingredient of this awareness-training are punctuality and to sit down in a straight line in Shimoza a few minutes before the start of the training.
The dojo at Folkehoyskole is adapted as well as possible to the traditional order of a classical dojo, even if the position of the door doesn’t allow for it completely. The teacher sits in front of Kamiza, the students opposite of him in Shimoza. The sitting order of the students is oriented at the rule that the more advanced students sit closer to Joseki (on the right side, if you look towards the Kamiza), the less advanced sit closer to Shimoseki. A nice custom that increases the holy atmosphere in the dojo – and a little ritual of purification as that, is the lightening of two candles right and left of the tokonoma, as well as the burning of an insence stick. Naturally it is the job of the students to take care of that.
After joint zarei an appointed student reads and interprets a saying out of O-Senseis collection of sayings ‘The Art of Peace’ (transl. John Stevens). This has always been a very touching moment for me, because independently of the deep wisdom of O-Senseis sayings, the interpretations of the students in their depth and truthfulness always impressed me very much. I always enjoyed their interpretations. Of course this is a contribution to an intensive examination of the substance of Aikido as a way. Depending on the situation on most occasions this is followed by a kind of instructor’s adress to the class by Dimitris. Sometimes he goes into particular details of the just heard. Sometimes he simply leads over to the topic he intends for the lesson. In any case his ‘Teisho’ always serves as a concentration of the lesson regarding one’s attitude towards life, one’s personal development as well as one’s care for the virtues.
A very important quartett, that has been mentioned repeatedly during the lessons, is Effort-Fokus-Concentration-Mindfulness, which in communion lead to Wisdom. During one reading a student said, the four of them were linked with each other like the four wheels of a wagon. In order to move properly, the wagon needs all four of its wheels. During physical training it is also taken care that not only technical progress is made, but that the training is always done with sharpened senses. Accordingly, a request of the teacher, for example to take position in the dojo in a certain manner, or to quickly change partners, or the exercise, is supposed to be accomplished possibly at once and smoothly, without delay or confusion.
Often Dimitris expresses the need for an ability to act immediately and to distinguish clearly between the important and the dispensable with his favorite humourously uncouth saying from his highly valued teacher Sensei George: Cut the Crap.
I found this attitude as an ideal prerequisite for the sword-lessons. In the end everything is just that, to really cut of everything that is unnecessary.
Last but not least, in Dimitris training we always encounter the demand to accomplish whatever we do in the best way that we can. He asks a lot of everybody, but he is always content with the outcome, if it has been accomplished with one’s particular best effort. This brings us into the present and gives us strength. Instead of impeding ourselves with evaluations of whichever we could have done better and therefore to get entangled with the past and to stick to ratings which might not even be our own, we can stay in the present, appreciate the outcome with good grace and continue to do the best possible for ourselves in every moment.