In 2014, a year into her retirement, Morag Warrack found herself in a village hall in the Surrey hills, surrounded by middle-aged men throwing each other on to the floor." When entering the classroom, I was terrified and thought all these men would be shocked by an old woman walking in," she says. "The teacher encouraged me to stay and I realized they were all kind and curious about me being there. That was my first experience of learning aikido."
At 59, Warrack, who had recently handed in her resignation, began reading up on mindfulness practices. "The more I looked into mindfulness, the more aikido kept coming up," she says. "These books were recommending it as a way to connect the mind, body and spirit."
Attracted by the idea, Warrack found a local class where she could take a beginners' session. Despite her struggles, Warrack kept returning. While her husband and two children were supportive, they weren't tempted to join in. "They just thought: Mum's off on one again," she says. Warrack carried on and, after two years of practice, she began moving up the graded system of belt rankings and noticing a change in herself. "Aikido was making me way more confident," she says, "Since my reactions got quicker, my balance was better and my coordination (协调性)improved, I had a real understanding of my own body and it became a metaphor(比喻)for how to be in life; how to avoid attack without hurting the other person."
By January 2019, Warrack was determined to achieve her black belt and began training with the only other person in her class who was at the same level as her: a181cm police officer. "It was a very odd pairing. Not least because he's so strong and so I had to learn how to use my skills rather than strength against him," she says.
In December 2021, Warrack, at the age of 66, took her black belt test. For 20minutes, she had to defend her position against attackers one after another before facing the final randori, where four people attack at once. "One guy kicked me and split my lip," she laughs. "It made me so angry, but that's what I needed to keep going." She passed, making her one of the oldest people to achieve an aikido black belt in the UK.
