Style: The way I understand it.

“Posture! Keep this posture! Look at me!” he chanted with desperate desire to fix my stance. Countless deliberate attempts lead to my failure, my body couldn‘t adapt to it easily ..…. Looking at his solid posture, his feet were rooted firmly to the ground, and his body structured in great balance. The entire position emanates fear and danger to those approaching him…Without mentioning his intimidating looks which wasn‘t limited to his face, but was flowing from his entire body. “Keep the style in it.” Then he rushed into circular movements with incredible speed, until he realized my amazement with my mouth wide open.

“It takes time…“ he uttered, “It is a pity that the current figure of humanity is unable to stand, or walk correctly” He added, “It just takes time and practice” he repeated.

It all made no sense to me in the beginning, I wasn’t paying enough attention to it since I was quite satisfied by the utterly intensive workout of techniques which poured jars of sweat. However, his eagerness to teach me that particular stance was enigmatic and mysterious. Two years have passed since my first class with Atif, I realized that my body began to follow its own unique standing stance, not particularly similar to Atif’s one, but there was “style” in it, my own personal signature…

The effect have expanded to the way I eat, walk, talk, and even think. The core of all of these actions was to keep the “style” and even when caught in a blunder or a serious mistake, keeping the style and posture is a prestigious way to hide the worst of doings, and best strategy to run away with it uncaught.

People thought I was secretly following a special diet in losing my weight, or flushing in fat burning tablets. I didn’t blame anyone because even to me, I didn’t easily imagine that great weight loss in such short time span. I was running long distances just to keep the stamina enough to keep up with Atif aikido classes and learn the most of it, but even that was not the burning factor.

The way I treated food was quite different, it is much related to the style of how the food is consumed. Timing, posture, and style are three ways to enjoy the meal, hide your wild nature, and respect your body.

It is quite true that the best way to know the other person’s bad habits, is to invite him to a meal while he is in extreme hunger….Sit and observe the wonders of humanity. Eating too quickly shows your weakness to the food you eat and the ignorance to the people you are with, it even flushes the stomach leading to a state of trance and troubled sleep….I haven’t fully adapt to these changes yet, it could take a lifetime…At least I had left it behind.