Community-Building

Apparently I'm bad about updating out here in Cali...  Well, here's to trying to be better about this!

Something I've been thinking about a lot recently is community - it is both hard to find and vital to make when moving to a new place.  This awareness makes me even more grateful for aikido.  In Rochester, the dojo was one of the strongest communities I found - my family away from home.  Now that I switched coasts, I've been even more overwhelmed - the fledgling community here welcomed me with open arms, and I have been working hard to help them grow into something sustainable and full of vitality.

So, why does aikido allow for such a feeling of community?  I think that one of our newest members hit the nail on the head when he mentioned why he was planning to stick with us.  He said that it was obvious our practice was based in a pure love of the art, which made the practice atmosphere seem friendly and collaborative.  This is exactly what we're going for - as I've discussed before, I see the theme of victory over oneself as central to aikido, which means that you are only competing against yourself.  Other people in the dojo, whether more or less experienced, can only help with that goal.

In my view, this collaborative kind of atmosphere is vital for any sort of study.  In my life as a grad student, I am at my most productive when talking with colleagues about a whole range of topics - to me, cutthroat competition only hinders effectiveness, whereas collaboration always allows for new perspectives and ideas to flourish.  This approach also correlates with the aikido goal of a holistic approach to life, with no part neglected.  By building a community, rather than a group of working enemies, mental health and growth is facilitated, along with work.  This in turn leads to even more productivity!

To me, the dojo can be a template for other social interactions.  In the dojo, uke and nage each try to improve their role, and constantly switch off, preventing any sense of a constant attacker.  The less and more experienced people work together, and both have the mindset of learning from the other.  Instructors look forward to taking classes with other sensei's, so that their own practice can continue to grow and they can develop new ways to present materials to their own students.  To me, this maps well onto ideal work situations - in academia, professors can learn from their students' fresh perspectives, and can keep friendly conversations alive with colleagues in their own departments and out.  This is certainly the type of atmosphere I'll work to cultivate in my life - both the dojo and my future classroom.

Train to Not Use It

Almost every non-martial artist I mention aikido to asks one question: "Have you ever used it???"  To me, there are two answers to this question.  The answer I actually believe is yes: I use it every day, and strive to use it every waking second.  If you're not sure what I mean by that, go read my prior posts to get some ideas.  The answer to the question they really mean, though, is no: I have never used it in a physical conflict situation.  And I hope I never have to.

This is the answer that nearly every martial artist I know gives; particularly that last part.  Aikido strives for non-violence, but we all know that if we were attacked, the pavement around us would cause rather serious damage.  Friends of mine who train in "harder" martial arts (force-wise, not skill-wise!) go even further - one person confessed to me that if she were ever actually attacked, she'd be afraid of killing her attacker, because the defenses that come most naturally to her are things like throat-jabs, which are effective, but very difficult to rein in!

This is why, across most martial arts, the phrase "We train so that we never use it," can be applied.  We don't just learn to use our bodies as (offensive or defensive) weapons, but also the discipline not to physically start or verbally instigate a fight.  In aikido at least, we learn to moderate our responses, so if someone attacks us, we can lay on a different level of hurt to a belligerent drunk than to an armed mugger.  We may even learn to verbally diffuse conflicts before they escalate to a level of physical violence.  By training, we learn to respect our bodies' potential to cause damage.

If you haven't figured it out by now, this is my second ever politically-relevant blog post.  Something that strikes me in all gun control debates is how little guns seem to be recognized as a legitimate martial pursuit, and on the flip side, needing the high degree of training that we all go through.  Honestly, I'd love to be one of the people who says we should just ban guns entirely.  Statistics in gun-free countries show that even among criminals, gun deaths become negligible.  Indeed, a couple of years ago, there was a knife incident in a Chinese school the same day as as a shooting in an American school - embarrassingly, we've had so many that I can't even remember which it was!  But, the point being, a dozen or so Americans were killed that day.  As many Chinese were injured, but not one fatally.  It's harder to kill as an amateur knife-wielder than as an imbecile with a semi-automatic.  The harder it is for people to have personal access to said semi-automatics, the harder it is to kill people.  Yes, I realize that it is still possible, but the syllogistic logic remains sound.

However, keeping me from that camp is my experience of those I'll call respectful gun owners.  These are people who respect their weapons and what those weapons can do.  They train guns the way I train aikido (ok, nearly all of them I can think of personally are/were also open-hand martial artists, but still...), and I have no hesitations about their trustworthiness when armed.  One takes such a holistic approach that she even makes her own bullets.  Because they get the same meditative joy out of their craft as I do out of mine, I have a hard time making a blanket statement that their passion is less valid than mine.

So, to wrap up my extremely ambivalent thoughts, some more ambivalence: yes, I do think guns kill people.  They are devastating weapons, and even badly aimed can shatter bone, puncture organs, etc, to a much greater degree than other weapons poorly used.  More guns, in my opinion, means more chances that the wrong person will get ahold of them, and have more chances to kill people (the Oregon shooter had a collection of THIRTEEN!).  However, I also think that people kill people.  Some large number of people seem to be brought up without any understanding that guns are mortal weapons, which allows them into the hands of both the untrained and unhinged (for the former, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/three-year-old-girl-dead-after-shooting-in-southeast-washington/2015/07/30/9ec511c6-36a1-11e5-b673-1df005a0fb28_story.html).  As martial artists, we train for years in order to not use our skills.  Perhaps more recreational gun users need to learn the same lesson.


NB: Before anyone starts commenting furiously, I was not trying to make any sort of policy suggestions here!  I certainly have some amorphous thoughts on that, but my dominant point is simply that anything with lethal potential should be respected.