Consciousness Checks

After my Kokikai Winter Camp and Spring Break induced hiatus, I had assumed that my first blog post back would be about something I learned from Maruyama-Sensei at camp.  But then life happened.

I had recently done a "Midterm Evaluation" with my class - where they evaluate my teaching at the halfway point, while there's still time to change things.  I was reading these evals when I got back, and one of the questions I asked was "What is the most important thing you've learned in this class so far?"  One of the answers struck me entirely:

"Writing with consciousness," the student said.  "Writing with consciousness."  Most likely, the student did not mean this on any deep philosophical level.  Perhaps he or she simply meant paying attention to word choice, or not spouting the b.s. that many high school classes breed in bright kids, or not writing in a coffee-induced haze at 4AM.  But for me, it raised a bizarre paradox: how can one write unconsciously, or subconsciously?  Writing is innately a deeply conscious act, requiring both mental processing and physical reaction parts of the brain to be fired up, at the most literal level.  On the flip side of that, I know that my best writing takes place from a state of mu shin, the hyper-aware empty mind that we strive for in aikido.

In general, however, I was struck by what this student said because it implied a greater truth about so many peoples' lives.  If this student and many others were used to doing some portion of their homework without consciousness, how much work do I do in the same state?  How much do you?  How much of each of our lives is spent without consciousness?  What part of each of our days do we go through in a state of inattentiveness, whether that means not concentrating on the task at hand, not caring, or just being in a mental daze?

In aikido, as all martial arts (as far as I know, along with most other physical disciplines), we train to heighten awareness at all times.  Too often, though, I suspect that this state does not leave the dojo.  In the coming week, I challenge myself and all of you to try to notice when we're slipping into unconscious action, and bring focus back to the task on hand.  Many people do "posture checks" of some sort throughout the day, so why not consciousness checks?