Make your own training adventures

Most days I tend to approach writing here with some calm and well formed thoughts. This morning, I'm feeling . . . not frustrated, but antsy maybe.

I want a dojo. I want a studio. I want somewhere I can go on a more regular basis to practice rigging. I want mentors.

I am blessed with the perfect rope bottom. (Who lives three hours away.) I have willing victims - er, volunteers - locally, but haven't been able to swing the time. It looks like it's have to be weeknights given my schedule. I already do two monthly SIGs. I have a wealth of riches. I feel almost ungrateful to have these longings at all, thinking back on how good I have it.

And yet. There's a yoga studio in my city where there are classes all day, all night - all levels. I wish I had something like that for rigging, where I could just make time to drop in and take a class, repeating it until I reach competancy and then getting on to the next one. There are days I want it to be that easy, or that challenging.

Thankfully, I've been doing this witch thing long enough that I know a bit about make-your-own-class adventures. I just finished helping to coordinate and priestess a local ritual that many of us also used as a catalyst for our Work in the last several weeks. Running up to Hallowe'en, I did the same thing kinkwise before a play party -- spending a couple of weeks really thinking about and practicing to do my best at a corset on a very attractive lass.

So: this is the point of suck it up. This is the time when I get past the holidays and start scheduling my own time in the dojo, even if it's on weekdays and even if I end up practicing mostly on myself. (Which, if I schedule right, I won't.) This is when I start figuring out what it takes for me to graduate to the next level, and reconfirm my committment to this art.

In any training, if I am doing it right, I hit a plateau of frustration about once a month or so. I'm there again. I want it to be easy, and it won't be. I want mentors that I don't necessarily have. So the important thing is that I continue the committment to teach myself, and that it's worthwhile. (It is.)