Last week, I wrote about the principle, masakatsu agatsu, true victory is victory over oneself. This week, I was reminded that sometimes, that means compromise.
While I generally get a lot out of the idea of masakatsu agatsu, I also think that the idea of victory itself creates a false dichotomy - where there is a victor, there is also a loser. However, we do not fight our partners in the dojo, so why do we fight ourselves? Of course, we challenge ourselves as we do our partners, but I think it is also important to remember that thinking of ourselves as the adversary is highly counterproductive.
This week, continued grad school frustration plus a traumatic, though helpful, visit to a career counselor spawned yet another breakdown about my future. I'm sure all of my grad school friends (and most other people in my age bracket!) can attest that this is something that just has to happen at least every couple of months. Unfortunately, this breakdown took the form of a three hour+ on-and-off crying jag, which led to a multi-day headache, and triggered my normally-cyclic depression to appear outside of its usual pattern and stay the week. Obviously, this did not lead to much productivity. Professionally, I noodled around with things all week, and often found myself caught by inertia and staring blankly at my computer. Headache and exhaustion led me to cut out of aikido a bit early on Tuesday, and not go Wednesday at all.
What was my automatic response? Masakatsu agatsu! I need to overcome myself! I need to force myself to go get things done and magically find energy for everything!
NO. This is not helpful. Anyone with a chronic disease can tell you, whether they suffer from depression, Lyme, arthritis, IBS, or even old age, there are days when you just can not do anything, and blaming yourself leads to only one result: feeling even worse about your inability.
This leads me to posit that masakatsu agatsu is truly asking instead that aikidoka seek to be their best selves, within every situation. I already discussed last week that this principle's orientation towards the self allows people of different abilities to all participate successfully through self-challenge. I would go further today and suggest that it allows every person to try to better themselves, within their current parameters. Rather than trying to force myself to do everything and only finding guilt, I needed to set realistic goals. Ok, maybe my morning exercise routine fell by the wayside, but at least I got to Test Prep Thursday night. I didn't get as much academic reading done as I wanted to, but I ran a good class when I had to teach, and I did get through a couple of useful texts.
In the dojo, this also holds true. Generally I'm flexible, but some days, my muscles are just tight. I don't expect myself to reach quite as far on those days - I just do my best to stretch with what my body gives me, and assume that I'll be back to normal soon if I keep doing my thing. This is accepted by most people who exercise, so why is it different outside of the gym? So, you forgot some techniques today. Just apply those you remember as perfectly as you can. So, your IBS is acting up - just stick to gentle foods, and try not to let it hurt your social life too much. So, your arthritis is worse today: allow yourself to do laundry (and therefore pick up heavy wet towels) a different day, and just do some computer work today.
Sometimes, victory over oneself means accepting terms of surrender, of blending with your internal and external situation. Mind over matter works... to a point, and forgiving yourself for that can often be the most productive means of moving forward. Moving forward is important, but sometimes you can leap, while other times you can only inch. Neither is a reason for self-recrimination. The principle of "victory" is a slippery one, and can mean something different to every person at every minute of the day. Forgive yourself when your parameters change. We're only human.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Masakatsu Agatsu: Birthday Meditations
One of the principles of aikido is, masakatsu agatsu, or "true victory is victory over oneself." In the dojo, this is often eminently visible. Two people will have the same rank, but to an outside observer, seem to have vastly different skill levels. To their constant classmates, though, it is obvious that both have their strengths and weaknesses, and both are proportionally better than the year prior, or when they started. One person may have had prior martial arts training which allowed them to start at a higher level, or maybe it meant they had more to unlearn at the beginning. However, aikido tracks our progress against ourselves, rather than our peers. If I have grown the proper amount in the last year, I'll be asked to test, whether I know fewer techniques than someone else testing for the same rank, or more of them.
This principle of masakatsu agatsu is one of the reasons I first became drawn to aikido. Often, it isn't useful in life to measure ourselves against others... or the pieces of others that they allow us to see. As a visitor to the dojo won't recognize the struggles each student overcame to reach their belt rank, I can't know what my peers did or didn't do to reach their place in life, what motivated them to post that happy selfie, how they feel when they get home at the end of the work day. All I can hope is that I did a better job at being me.
My birthday was this past week, and so these thoughts of self-comparison are at the fore of my brain. I wonder, did I work to my full capacity this past year? Was I as kind as I want to be? Did I manage to be a good friend to everyone? Did I cope with my problems adequately without forcing everyone around me to hear me griping all the time? I hope the answer is yes, though that last question probably still needs some work.
Masakatsu agatsu is likely not a one-time thing, however, and it need not be a lonely path. The self doesn't stay conquered! This week also began test prep at the dojo, which means we took a practice test and video taped it, to have as a baseline for our next 6 weeks of practice. At the end, everyone (from white belt to our highest black belts) critiques each test. The tester always looks at his or her own test first with a critical eye, and together, we work to build a picture of every aikidoka as someone with many strengths, who can work towards a few concrete goals before their test. This collaborative experience shows us that victory over ourselves, while important to have as a self-generated goal, is not necessarily a solipsistic one. We can rely on our friends, family, and mentors to help us along the way, giving honest and generous feedback. Sometimes, overcoming oneself is a very literal fight, not just being the best you can be. But overcoming that fear, that illness, that flaw, is both vitally important, and something we need a support system to do.
This principle of masakatsu agatsu is one of the reasons I first became drawn to aikido. Often, it isn't useful in life to measure ourselves against others... or the pieces of others that they allow us to see. As a visitor to the dojo won't recognize the struggles each student overcame to reach their belt rank, I can't know what my peers did or didn't do to reach their place in life, what motivated them to post that happy selfie, how they feel when they get home at the end of the work day. All I can hope is that I did a better job at being me.
My birthday was this past week, and so these thoughts of self-comparison are at the fore of my brain. I wonder, did I work to my full capacity this past year? Was I as kind as I want to be? Did I manage to be a good friend to everyone? Did I cope with my problems adequately without forcing everyone around me to hear me griping all the time? I hope the answer is yes, though that last question probably still needs some work.
Masakatsu agatsu is likely not a one-time thing, however, and it need not be a lonely path. The self doesn't stay conquered! This week also began test prep at the dojo, which means we took a practice test and video taped it, to have as a baseline for our next 6 weeks of practice. At the end, everyone (from white belt to our highest black belts) critiques each test. The tester always looks at his or her own test first with a critical eye, and together, we work to build a picture of every aikidoka as someone with many strengths, who can work towards a few concrete goals before their test. This collaborative experience shows us that victory over ourselves, while important to have as a self-generated goal, is not necessarily a solipsistic one. We can rely on our friends, family, and mentors to help us along the way, giving honest and generous feedback. Sometimes, overcoming oneself is a very literal fight, not just being the best you can be. But overcoming that fear, that illness, that flaw, is both vitally important, and something we need a support system to do.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Breaking Down Duality
It is easy to see the world as a series of dualities. They appear all around us: male/female, day/night, etc. It is also easy to see the dojo this way: uke/nage, sensei/student, left/right. We are constantly told, "Remember to use both hands," and reminded of our lateral symmetry. We aim for the third leg to take uke off balance, because humans only actually have two to balance on.
However, when these dualities are examined more closely, they tend to break down. Looking outside at dawn or dusk reveals something neither day nor night. Biology and psychology both suggest that neither sex nor gender is always dualistic. The same holds true in the dojo. Uke and nage constantly switch roles, and both learn from the other. I'm lucky to be part of a huge dojo, so the black belt in the role of "sensei" one day may well be simply another student the next day. While we have two hands and two feet, our symmetry is united by a constant awareness of one point at the center.
Because aikido is an art of self-improvement, we do not have competitions or enemies. This allows us to have an open-minded perspective on the world. We are encouraged to learn the mediated response - this too breaks dualism. We have the option of responding differently when we're grabbed by a friend in a bar, or a stranger in an alley. We can then also decide if that stranger is grabbing us because they're hurt and need attention, are drunk and belligerent, or are actually a danger and perhaps have a weapon. This means there is a lot more nuance than "friend" and "enemy".
There has been a lot of hatred in the media lately. There are reports of acts of hatred, from Boko Haram's unprecedented massacre, to the murders at Charlie Hebdo. There are also responses of hatred, with people blaming all Muslims, blaming all satirists, erasing all women from photos, and wanting to bomb X people out of existence. You'll note that my examples are drawn from both "sides" of these conflicts - it seems as though the one thing everyone agrees on is that WE are right, and THEY are wrong.
Wars are a lot easier to fight when the enemy is faceless and manic. In aikido, however, our goal is deescalation and peace. For this, we must do our best to see people as people, as individuals. If we considered every attacker as identical, we'd hurt beginners by throwing them like blackbelts. We'd pound friends' faces into the ground because muscle memory interprets a playful grab as a hostile act.
Instead, in aikido, we walk chudo - the middle path. This means we can look to both sides with awareness, both in the physical world and mentally. We learn to see the extremes of excess force and flight and decide what action between those extremes is merited. We see extremists, and avoid their polarized view of life. Something I feel like I can do in this world is to spread this perspective of observation and moderate response. It is hard to feel like I'm making a difference because the world is so big, but if I can remind those around me to react with consideration rather than hatred, that is something.
However, when these dualities are examined more closely, they tend to break down. Looking outside at dawn or dusk reveals something neither day nor night. Biology and psychology both suggest that neither sex nor gender is always dualistic. The same holds true in the dojo. Uke and nage constantly switch roles, and both learn from the other. I'm lucky to be part of a huge dojo, so the black belt in the role of "sensei" one day may well be simply another student the next day. While we have two hands and two feet, our symmetry is united by a constant awareness of one point at the center.
Because aikido is an art of self-improvement, we do not have competitions or enemies. This allows us to have an open-minded perspective on the world. We are encouraged to learn the mediated response - this too breaks dualism. We have the option of responding differently when we're grabbed by a friend in a bar, or a stranger in an alley. We can then also decide if that stranger is grabbing us because they're hurt and need attention, are drunk and belligerent, or are actually a danger and perhaps have a weapon. This means there is a lot more nuance than "friend" and "enemy".
There has been a lot of hatred in the media lately. There are reports of acts of hatred, from Boko Haram's unprecedented massacre, to the murders at Charlie Hebdo. There are also responses of hatred, with people blaming all Muslims, blaming all satirists, erasing all women from photos, and wanting to bomb X people out of existence. You'll note that my examples are drawn from both "sides" of these conflicts - it seems as though the one thing everyone agrees on is that WE are right, and THEY are wrong.
Wars are a lot easier to fight when the enemy is faceless and manic. In aikido, however, our goal is deescalation and peace. For this, we must do our best to see people as people, as individuals. If we considered every attacker as identical, we'd hurt beginners by throwing them like blackbelts. We'd pound friends' faces into the ground because muscle memory interprets a playful grab as a hostile act.
Instead, in aikido, we walk chudo - the middle path. This means we can look to both sides with awareness, both in the physical world and mentally. We learn to see the extremes of excess force and flight and decide what action between those extremes is merited. We see extremists, and avoid their polarized view of life. Something I feel like I can do in this world is to spread this perspective of observation and moderate response. It is hard to feel like I'm making a difference because the world is so big, but if I can remind those around me to react with consideration rather than hatred, that is something.
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