The Still Small Voice

I have a little, nagging voice inside my head. Its name is Aikido. I don't always hear it; it's picky about where and when to speak up. It's never very loud, either. But there's no denying it's there, and the more I train the more often I hear it.

Usually the first time I hear Aikido during the day is in the shower. The alarm has roused me from bed, I've fed the cat, and I stumble, cold and groggy, into the bathtub. As the hot water starts to come down, I lean lazily to one side, unhappy to be standing up and eager to squeeze as much of me as I can into the warm spray.

Then it starts. Straighten up, says Aikido quietly. Distribute your weight evenly between your feet.

I comply. I spread my feet to shoulders' width. My hips level and my shoulders relax. A pain in my knee and calf that I hadn't even noticed before starts to subside. I feel a little more stable, a little stronger, and a little more ready to face 17 hours of being awake.

After my shower, I dress, make breakfast, and pack lunch. As I'm heading out of the apartment building toward my car, I sometimes hear Aikido again. You're turning out your right foot when you walk, says Aikido. Fix it.

Again, I submit. I straighten out my right foot. Walking is suddenly easier on my left leg and my right knee is at a much more comfortable angle. I hadn't noticed before that moment how much effort I had been wasting on an inefficient gait, but Aikido had noticed. 

One morning last month at work, a particularly difficult autistic middle school student had to be restrained for an unusually long time. They usually call me for this kind of duty with this particular student; he and I have something of a rapport and the staff member assigned to him is too small to hold him for long when he gets determined.

And he does get determined. This student, when upset, can go to a place beyond reason and beyond verbal communication. When that happens, there is nothing to be said, and the only thing to do is hold on and try to prevent him from hurting himself or anyone else. This time, he swung, he kicked, he bit, and when all those failed him, he tried to hit his head on the hard floor just to spite us.

I'm trained in safe (or at least as safe as possible) ways to restrain violent kids. I had this student in an approved hold, but he's big enough that I was still struggling to keep him still. I was holding as tightly as I could, and that kept him from hitting or kicking me, but it didn't keep his thrashing from threatening to pull me off-balance.

Into this chaos came the voice of Aikido. You're muscling, Aikido said. Relax. Drop your shoulders. Think down into the floor. Hold him with your center of gravity, not your arms. Now breathe.

Sweating and with a screaming adolescent in my arms, I followed each command dutifully. As my shoulders rolled back and my grip relaxed, the student found less to struggle against. As my weight sank, I felt my legs and core take over much of the work I'd been doing with my tired arms. I inhaled deeply through my nose and exhaled slowly through my mouth. I even allowed myself the luxury of closing my eyes for a moment. Suddenly, everything had become easier.

There is a lot of talk in aikido circles about how what we learn in aikido can be applied "off the mat". Much of this is hippie stuff about loving all living things and becoming one with the universe. Assuming these goals are even possible, I think the best place to pursue them is in a church and not a dojo. I've never met an aikido instructor with credentials as any kind of spiritual adviser.

At the other end of the spectrum, there are those who believe aikido is realistic combat training, and that they're going to take their aikido out to "the street" and use their shihonages on 300-pound thugs with guns and knives. Personally, if I really wanted to learn to fight, I'd find something other than stylized techniques derived from feudal-era Japanese fencing. I have trained with only one aikido instructor who has what I would call real combat experience (he's a former Army Ranger), and he had no such illusions about aikido.

In between both these extremes, I think, there are benefits of aikido that are very, very real. Good, hard aikido training will make us stronger, fitter, and more flexible. It will teach us perseverance and patience. And the physics of aikido are the physics of life: the biomechanical lessons we learn out on the mat can be applied to many tasks that require our strength and balance.

Perhaps these benefits are not exclusive to aikido. Perhaps we can find them in all martial arts, including some whose techniques are better suited to real combat. To be honest, I don't know enough to be sure.

But I do know that there is a little voice in my head telling me some very useful things, and that this voice was born in the dojo.

Aikido for the Classroom, Part II

No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy's main strength.
- Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

I had to restrain a really, truly violent student for the first time two weeks ago.

For the sake of those involved, I won't go into details. It's enough for now to say that when I arrived to respond to a frantic distress call, the situation was already well beyond any solution but physical intervention. A very large, very angry adolescent needed to be stopped now, and I was going to have to be the one to do it.

Procedures were forgotten. Training was forgotten.

I should have known better, of course; besides my regular training in aikido, I had been through training specifically for situations like this through the school system. But I charged in mindlessly, shoving a desk out of my way, with no plan except to be bigger and stronger than the student.

The trouble is, I almost wasn't.

I like to think that regular martial arts training and exercise makes me a little stronger than the average musician/teaching aide, but hell hath no fury like the pent-up rage of a large tweenager. It took everything I had to stop his charge without hurting him, and a little more I didn't know I had until then to avoid hurting myself. Had he been any bigger, or had I been any smaller, I likely would have failed to stop further violence.

What did I do wrong? Well, nothing. And everything.

The hold I tried on him was indeed one prescribed by my training, but it only barely worked. Not because I was doing it incorrectly, but because I wasn't really big enough or strong enough to pull off this particular hold on such a large student. Had I kept my presence of mind, I might have realized that it was too risky to try and pull this off with brute strength, started my half of a more appropriate two-person hold, and yelled for help from one of the other adults in the room.

But I didn't. I gave my mind over to instinct, and started a contest of strength. Thankfully, I won this one, and prevented any further violence or injury. But I must admit, I got lucky.

What have I been learning in a year-plus at the dojo if not to stay centered and avoid dependence on strength? Apparently, I haven't learned it enough.

One thing I learned in this instance, though: I've got a lot more training to do.

Tough Choices

My green belt test was supposed to be yesterday.

The trouble is, my instructor at the Academy is now following USA Taekwondo rules about not promoting his own students, which means that, in order for him to conduct a test, he needs to bring in an instructor from the outside. And, this time at least, that instructor was only available during the school day. That's all well and good for the kids, but of course I'm working then.

Sure, I probably could have worked it out for someone to cover me for the length of a test, but I really don't want to be that guy who looks for enablers so he can do personal business on company time. I told my instructor this; he understands, but since he doesn't have another instructor at his beck and call all the time, my green belt test has been postponed to a date and time to be determined.

Since discovering this, I have slacked off on my taekwondo training in favor of more aikido and shorter workouts. The kids were at a tournament last weekend, so it's been a week-and-a-half since I've actually trained in the dojang. I haven't felt the drive. I haven't been in the mood. It's hard to convince myself to keep practicing for a test without any promise that the test is, in fact, coming.

I can't honestly say I'm sure I'll ever have the opportunity to test. My instructor is not professionally obligated to me the way he is to the kids. What's more, i'm still not sure the Academy, my source of taekwondo, will even be around after this school year. It seems I must return to a rather stubborn question: do I really need taekwondo?

I do have aikido, an art that both challenges and fascinates me. And taekwondo, at least as it is available to me at the Academy, does not really seem to be meeting my needs. The trouble is, there clearly are needs, needs that are slipping through the cracks in my aikido training. That, as I have explained before, is the whole reason I've kept crawling back to taekwondo.

So if I'm going to abandon taekwondo for good, now a more attractive prospect than ever, one of three things has to happen:

1. I need to find something to replace the physicality and martial mindset of taekwondo,
2. I need to make peace with the occasional lack thereof in aikido, or
3. I need to find something that would satisfactorily replace both.

The first option seems impossible in terms of time and money without abandoning aikido, and the third option doesn't seem to exist at all, at least not at an affordable rate on the south side of Milwaukee. So I guess I'm left with the second.

I keep going round and round in these arguments with myself, and aikido and I always end up together at the end. Maybe this is the way it's meant to go.

I think I hear Peter Cetera singing somewhere.

But if I am to be solely an aikidoka, I am, at some point, going to have to address the problems I see in my aikido, the problems I have been trying to address with taekwondo. I'm not singularly obsessed with combat effectiveness, but I do need to be sure that what I'm learning is a real martial art. And right now, I'm not, at least not always.

Maybe there's nothing a not-quite-sixth kyu can do about that within the confines of the dojo. I am more or less at the mercy of my instructors at this level. But if I stay aikido's course and continue to gain experience and skill, the time will eventually come when I must take responsibility for my art, when I must start making it into what I need it to be in my life.

What will that entail? Seeking out new instructors? Traveling to far-away seminars? More crosstraining? Maybe. But whatever it is, I'm almost sure, even now, that it will eventually require something more than just showing up to the dojo at my regular times. Am I ready for that?

I'm not sure. But for now, it seems that, for better or for worse, aikido must be my journey.

Aikido for the Classroom

I spent last Wednesday and Thursday at nonviolent crisis intervention training. This is something required for all staff at the Academy, due to our abundance of students with emotional and behavioral disorders.

The training covered how to deal verbally with a student in crisis, how to escape a violent attack from a student, and how to physically restrain a student as a last resort. It was, as I said, nonviolent crisis intervention, which means all of the above needed to be accomplished without harming the student.

A couple of the other teachers had trouble with this. It bothered them that, in a situation in which they would feel totally justified in striking back, the wellfare of the student remained their legal responsibility. For my part, aikido's precept of minimizing harm to the attacker had already prepared me for this conundrum.

In fact, I found that my meager year of aikido gave me a head start on much of the material covered in the training. The stages of dealing with students in crisis verbally were very reminiscent of the way Thomas Crum applies aikido principles to interpersonal conflict in his book The Magic of Conflict. Some of the physical techniques covered in the training could have come straight from an aikido class.

One restraining hold, for instance, had me next to my restrainee, him bent over, my hip against his, my inside hand on his upper arm and my outside hand holding his hand tight to me, palm-up and elevated above his shoulder. Anyone familiar with aikido will recognize this position:



(Thanks to the Ueshiba Aikido Association for the picture)

We know it from the technique ikkyo.

Indeed, I got so far into an aikido state of mind during our arm grab escapes that when a fellow trainee accidentally grabbed me in a way that hadn't been covered by the training, I had her halfway into katate dori ikkyo before I knew what I was doing.

I suspect I looked rather foolish, grinning like a child as I escaped simulated punches, kicks, arm grabs, and hair pulls, but I was, quite frankly, overjoyed. This was the first time I had been given any indication from the outside world that what I had been learning in the dojo could be applied to something real.

I have complained before that the practical applications of aikido are not always readily apparent at my dojo. It's something I constantly struggle with: trying to keep a martial state of mind while sometimes being presented with things that look and feel more like two-person yoga exercises than martial arts techniques.

But last week, I got to see the physical and ethical principles of aikido at work, in the hands of trainers who knew nothing about aikido but everything about dealing with real crises. It was an encouraging moment for me, one I will try to remember the next time a sensei wants to work on mystifying connection exercises.

Finding Strength in Sparring

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
- Frank Herbert, Dune

Much is made of how unrealistic taekwondo sparring is. There are extensive rules about where and how a participant may hit his opponent, there is no grappling or ground fighting (a cardinal sin in the age of MMA), there is much more kicking than in a typical fight, and participants are extensively padded. What's more, since participants are playing purely for points, strikes and kicks tend to get slappy, more concerned with speed than effectiveness.

I myself have complained that my taekwondo instructor at the Academy spends so much time on sparring. It's not something that's going to be on my test, and I really feel I need more instruction in the basics than I'm getting. And I can see as well as anyone the disconnect between sparring and fighting.

All that said, sparring is one of the main reasons I continue to train in taekwondo, and I think there is tremendous power to be found in it.

I think I saw this power exemplified a few months ago.

We used to have a rather troublesome brother and a sister at the Academy with a notorious family. Their previous school had taken out a restraining order against their father after he made threats against the staff.

The first and last time we had the father in to conference about his daughter, he flew into a rage when a teacher tried to explain something to him he didn't seem to understand. He started screaming that he wasn't stupid and that he had a college degree, and threatened to "fix" the teacher who had tried to explain.

At this point, one of our aides-- I'll just call him D here-- stepped in, and calmly told the father that it was time for him to leave the building. I've seen the security footage of this. The father is a positively massive man, easily over six feet tall and probably more than 300 pounds. He was screaming and waving his hands in D's face, but D stood his ground calmly, repeating himself politely until the father agreed to be escorted out of the building. It was a magnificent performance.

This is the power I am searching for in sparring. In the nervousness, the sweat, and the flurry of fists and feet, I am hoping to meet my pain and vulnerability and make peace with them. Once I no longer fear these things, I will be able to face even the most fearsome of enemies with a smile and a bow.

And that would be a greater power than even the deadliest of techniques.

What If...

The word has come down from on high: there is a slight chance that the Academy will not be around next year. I won't go into the details, except to say that some people in the school district aren't sure we're worth the trouble of maintaining.

Now, let's set aside the important questions about my job and my future for a second and ask the question most pertinent to the subject of this blog: would the end of the Academy be the end of my taekwondo training?

It's a two-part question. Part one, whether I would have the time or money to pursue taekwondo on my own on top of my aikido training, has no answer yet, since I don't know what my next job would be. What I'll address here is part two: do I really need to continue taekwondo training at all if I'm training in aikido?

It's not an easy question. To be sure, aikido is quite fulfilling on its own. It has made me a healthier, happier, more complete human being. And no matter where my martial arts journey takes me in the future, aikido will always be an important part of my understanding of what the martial arts are and ought to be.

All that said, there are days when aikido training feels more like pondering a koan than practicing a martial art. I'll sometimes go through two hours of aikido without even breaking a sweat and end up confused and wondering what I was supposed to have learned. Aikido is not an art for those seeking a quick gratification or the most strenuous workout.

But taekwondo is. In taekwondo, there is no time for thinking. I find the weaknesses in my technique and I attack them repeatedly. When I'm done, I'm dripping sweat, my muscles ache, and I know exactly what I've learned and what I need to learn next. It's beautiful in its simplicity.

This stark contrast between aikido and taekwondo is something I've explored twice before on this blog (here and here), and both times I came to the conclusion that the simplicity and physicality of taekwondo were things I couldn't give up, at least not yet, despite an understanding that aikido is closer to my heart and probably a more important part of my future as a martial artist.

So what to do if my source of free taekwondo dries up? Do I find the most convenient McDojang in town to continue my training? Do I seek out a reputable master and adjust my schedule to his? Do I start over with a similar martial art, such as karate, which might meet the same needs but use Japanese terminology and etiquette like aikido?

None of these options sound all that appealing to me. And all of them sound expensive.

I hate to say it, but I think that, unless I'm willing to give up aikido (and I don't think I am), the end of the Academy would be the end of my taekwondo, at least for a while. It's a shame, because I think it would be a great loss.

But for all my moaning and groaning, I have aikido. And I think I can love the one I'm with.

A Mirror for the Soul

The Academy rents its space from a convent, which means that, despite our charter through a public school district, we are often in contact with nuns and religious imagery. While most of the students have come to accept this as just part of the scenery, I still occasionally manage to look at the convent through Christian eyes.

My favorite part of the convent starts on the second floor and stretches up to the third: a big, beautiful Nineteenth Century chapel.

It has lovely stained glass windows, mosaic ceilings, a huge pipe organ back in the choir loft, a smaller pipe organ in the front, marble pillars and altar, the works. The acoustics inside are enough to make a singer like myself salivate. Stepping into the space inspires a strange mix of feelings in me: awe, wonder, insignificance, closeness to God.

The last time I stepped into the chapel (I snuck in for a few moments to listen to the organist practice), a strange thing happened, or rather almost happened. I felt an urge to bow as I went in. Not bow my head in prayer, mind you, but rei, the Japanese bow I perform when stepping into the dojo or onto the mat.

This opens up the floodgates for a staggering number of questions about how the martial arts have affected my thinking and my spirituality in the past year, but I'll start with the biggest and most important: have I begun to equate the martial arts with religion?

To be sure, my martial arts training, especially the aikido, has a spiritual element to it. The kneeling, the bowing, and the ritualized breathing exercises all seem to reach for something more than material. Even some of the warm-up exercises at the beginning of the aikido class are derived from Shinto ritual. But I don't pray to O Sensei (Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido) and I don't go looking for salvation in a kotegaeshi or a side kick. I don't even buy into the more mystical interpretations of ki.

Still, it is clear that my martial arts spirituality is moving into space previously reserved for religious spirituality. If, as I concluded above, the problem isn't that I am affording the martial arts undue religious significance, then the problem must come from the other side, that is, my own observance of religion. There must be some kind of spiritual need I am not filling with Christianity as I am currently practicing it.

Wow.

Not only have I poked an embarassing hole in my religious self-assuredness, but I have discovered a surprising power of the martial arts. I just used them as a sort of spiritual mirror, looking into them and seeing something about myself that I hadn't been able to see from inside my own head. It's a strange feeling.

What else might I accomplish this way? What else might I find in this new mirror? Maybe I don't want to know.

Less is More, I Hope

The taekwondo instructor at the Academy is on a mission.

Only last year, he seemed a quite traditional-minded martial arts instructor, mixing elements of kali and tai chi into his taekwondo classes, solemnly preaching the tenets all taekwondoists know by heart: courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, indomitable spirit. Not that he no longer does these things, mind you, but he seems to have undergone some kind of transformation. He is no longer a mere instructor.

Now he is a coach. A fully qualified USA Taekwondo coach.

He and another one of our staff members are on a full-time crusade to turn the school into one of the top centers of competitive youth taekwondo in the Midwest, if not the country. Oh sure, he's taken our students to tournaments before, as far north as Green Bay and as far south as the northernmost suburbs of Chicago, but he's got a core of students now for whom there are much bigger plans. There have been conversations recently about Oregon and Oklahoma.

It's an admirable mission. Besides bringing more attention and possibly more funding to the school, he's providing an opportunity for serious competitive sport to a school that has offered almost none to its student body to this point. It's particularly great for his more serious and talented taekwondo students, who might now get a shot at exposure to world-class taekwondo on a pretty regular basis. All good news, right?

Good news for everyone except me. I'm a 28-year-old yellow belt with very little interest in trophies and even less talent for competitive athletics. There is no longer room for me in after school classes, and Saturday mornings, which used to be devoted entirely to the hour-and-a-half-long adult class, now play host to a one-hour adult class (even that partially populated by teenage students) and a one-hour kids' class. My opportunities for training in taekwondo are becoming much slimmer, and I must confess to a little bit of self-pity and jealousy.

But Matt, you ask, isn't your instructor's primary duty to the students? Isn't his instruction for adult staff members a free goodwill service that you have no right to take for granted? Hasn't your attendance at the adult taekwondo classes been sporadic even at the best of times? Haven't you even suggested on this very blog that aikido is your first choice as a martial art and your future in taekwondo is limited? Shouldn't you just be happy for your students and proud of your instructor's efforts on behalf of the school?

Well, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Touché. So I'm being petty, irrational, and childish. Thanks for reminding me.

I suppose next you're going to tell me that the solution to all this is to just shut up and train whenever I can. Well, I have news for you, you condescending, judgmental reader. You can't tell me what to do. I make my own decisions, and I decide... to shut up and train whenever I can.

It's true: I don't really have any business harboring indignation about playing second fiddle to a group of younger, more talented, more devoted students whom my instructor actually gets paid to instruct. I guess that doesn't make it all better, but it does make my course of action pretty clear, especially in light of the tenets of taekwondo.

The second tenet of taekwondo is usually known in English as "integrity", but it carries an additional connotation in Korean. I've read some older books that translate it as "humility". If humility, then, is an essential element of taekwondo, then swallowing my pride, taking my one-hour class, and accepting that I'm not anywhere near the top of the priority list makes me a better taekwondoist, right?

I said, right?

Lovely Lucy and Steady Sally: A Martial Arts Metaphor

A little over a year into my journey as a martial artist, my conundrum remains the same: aikido and taekwondo competing for my time, my energy, and my attention. Aikido seems to be winning, but taekwondo isn't going away.

It was starting my job at the Academy, a school where all the students learn taekwondo as physical education, that piqued my interest in the martial arts to begin with. Taekwondo's beautiful poomse (forms), the acrobatic kicks, the statuesque stances, the rush of sparring with a friend or just punching and kicking pads or a bag. It's exciting, it's a great workout, and it makes me feel like the star of a martial arts movie.

Taekwondo does occasionally come up short in the area of intellectual and spiritual stimulation, though, and there are times in my training when I feel like 28 years old is too late to start conditioning my body to perform head-high kicks when I've never been able to touch my toes before.

When I took my martial arts search outside of work, I found aikido. Compared to the hard, simple punches and kicks of taekwondo, it's very gentle and yet very demanding. Rather than simply striking or kicking my opponent, aikido expects me to harmonize with his movements and take control of him. Sometimes that's no easy task.

I find peace in aikido's traditional ettiquette and ritual, and I find completeness in the fact that its philosophy and ethics are readily apparent in every technique. Sometimes it isn't much of a workout, though, and there are days when trying to understand it feels like trying to grab hold of a shadow. But there is a future in aikido: it keeps my mind busy and expects less of my body. I think the 55-year-old me might appreciate this someday.

I have the age-old man's dilemma: Lovely Lucy on one side and Steady Sally on the other.

Lucy (taekwondo) is, well, hot. She's sexy. She's stylish. She's always doing something fun. She's the kind of girl tough guys fight over and other guys dream about. What guy wouldn't want this girl on his arm?

Maybe she's not the best for clever conversation, and sometimes it's hard to keep up with her. To be honest, she might be a little young for me.

Sally (aikido) is certainly lovely in her own way, but not very glamorous and a little shy. An evening with her is more likely to be spent on the couch than in a club. There are nights when I want to go for a drink or a movie and she just isn't up for it.

If less exciting, she's certainly interesting. Unlike Lucy, she makes a regular habit of reading books without pictures in them. She has less to say than Lucy, but more to talk about. She can be a little demanding emotionally; she's looking for commitment, not just companionship.

She's a good cook. Her house is clean. She's comfortable.

For some time now, I've been flirting with both. I like to think that I can keep this up for a while longer. But I know someday I'll have to choose, and on that day, I'll choose Sally. She's better marriage material, and I'm not going to be young enough to handle Lucy forever. Truth be told, I was more of a Sally kind of guy in the first place.

But right now I'm still young, and I just can't get Lucy out of my head. The beauty and the excitement are too much for a guy to resist. So in the end, I'm back where I started, only a year older. I'm still devoted to one, and I'm still unable to give up the other. I'm about to turn 29, and I'm gearing up for another year of dedicated fence-riding.

If nothing else, it should be a fun ride.