Reflections

Yesterday was my 33rd birthday. This year also marks my 11th year studying Aikido. Interesting to note that I’ve now been studying for a third of my life. Not great span of time, when compared to others. But, at this point in my life, there are few things I can point to that have been a part of my life for that long.

It’s easy, I think, on occasions like birthdays, to sit back and look at your life and what you’re doing with it. At least, I think it’s easier on birthdays than other days of the year. Perhaps it’s because birthdays are “all about you.” (Were you to ask my parents, however, they would say it really should be all about them!) Given the importance of Aikido in my life, it is hard not to think about my training and my dojo. The following are some of the thoughts that crossed my mind:

• Aikido training has gotten to the point where I almost feel as if I practice because to do otherwise would simply be counter to my nature. It’s like breathing, in a way; I do it because it is a natural activity that is essential for my state of being. That said, I don’t ever want my training to be a “habit.” That is to say, I don’t want to train mindlessly, performing motions without being fully engaged in them. Smoking a cigarrette is a habit; so is singing along to songs on the radio. Habits require no thought; but training requires my constant presence.
• My level of physical fitness cannot rely solely on my Aikido training. This would probably not be the case were I merely training, instead of teaching. But since the majority of my training involves me as an instructor, it has become increasingly difficult for me to get a workout during my time on the mat. I used to try and exercise; and in fact,  I try to make sure I exchange a few techniques with each student during class. But when I teach it is not about me; it is about my students. The last time I focused more on my own training than teaching, one of my students got injured. It was bad luck, and there was nothing I could do about it; but I should have been watching, instead of selfishly focusing on my own technique. Since I can’t count on my time on the mat to keep me in shape, I must continue to strive to exercise off the mat. This has meant that there are many nights where I leave work, teach class, spend a little time with my daughter, exercise, and then sleep. That’s been… an adjustment.
• I must endeavor to learn from whatever sources are available to me. I do not have the funds or the flexibility of schedule to see Sensei Maruyama every time he is in the United States. (Fall Camp this year will even be a stretch for me, but I’m going.) Therefore, I must keep my eyes open and learn from wherever I can. Of course, Sensei Bannister is the obvious choice. But I can also learn from my students, from other Aikido practitioners with whom I have become friends, and from the world around me. I may not make as much progress as, say, Sensei Robert Choy, whom I envy for his ability to travel to see Sensei Maruyama so often. But if I keep my eyes and heart open, and train with sincerity, I will make progress nonetheless.

You can’t just think it

This may be a topic that I have written about before; however, it has been on my mind a lot over the past few weeks so I’m writing about it again.

Lately, my Aikido training has been taking some very interesting philosophical and mental turns. It began, I think, with a unique training opportunity with Sensei Bannister. It grew exponentially when Sensei Berry came to visit. And it continues evolving as I find more reading material (including other blogs, in fact!) on Aikido. The purpose of this particular post is not to describe these philosophical musing; instead, I’m more concerned about the disconnect between words and reality.

Let me try to explain. Our society is, for the most part, entrenched in intellect. We pride ourselves on our supposed depth of thinking, our capability to comprehend. Yet, as most experienced practitioners of aikido already understand, understanding a subject from an intellectual standpoint does not equate to mastering that subject. I can study aerodynamics, for example, to the point that I know how and why a plane flies; that does not give me the skill to actually fly a 747 from Seattle to Boston. Most people know this is true when the subject matter with a tangible or quantifiable result: I can either fly a 747, or I can’t, for example. But when the subject is something less concrete, it seems that the line between intellectual understanding and actual, real understanding becomes blurred. And this is frequently true in Aikido.

Here’s a personal example: one of the zen koans that Sensei Bannister asked me–around the time of my 3rd kyu test–was “How do you defeat the man in the mirror?” It was question, he told me, that Sensei Maruyama put to him. Knowing already that this was a zen koan, I immediately figured the answer was not going to be obvious or straightforward. I thought about it for about a week, and then came up with what I thought was the “right” answer: “I can’t defeat the man in the mirror, because I am the man in the mirror.”

The problem is not whether the answer was correct; the problem is that this answer was born purely out of intellect. It had no basis in reality. Consequently, my understanding was purely superficial at best. And I probably would have continued on my way, quite happy that I had answered the question, thinking that I had achieved some measure of enlightenment. Chances are, in discussions with many other martial artists, my intellectual blustering might well have been enough to convince others that I actually understood something. Ha!

Fortunately for me, there was (and is) a senior student at the Seattle dojo named Greg Norman. While I give Sensei Bannister credit for teaching me, I give credit to Greg for pushing me to learn. Greg holds nothing back when we train together. One day, after catching me in the ribcage pretty good off of tsuki kotegaeshi, he looked at me and said: “You can’t just think it. You have to do it.” When he said that, something clicked. Not just in my head, but in me. Since then, I try to recognize that words and thinking are only part of the equation. To paraphrase Sensei Berry: aikido training is “a collective experience in mental exploration done physically.”

The challenge I face now is that some of these ideas difficult to describe in less-than-abstract terms. I worry that, on the rare occasions that I try to mention one of these ideas to my students, I risk having them confuse intellectual understanding with actual understanding. Yet, if I say nothing at all on these ideas, I limit the open exchange of communication that seems to have become one of the hallmarks of our little dojo.

Perhaps it is this challenge–to foster actual understanding of ourselves and the world around us–that makes randori and testing so useful. Those are two opportunities that I can think of in which one must demonstrate actual understanding. Intellectual comprehension (and, for that matter, physical skill) alone do not cut it. But I will challenge myself further: to encourage my students to seek actual understanding of the topics that interest them and, to again use Greg’s words: “You can’t just think it. You have to do it.”

Changing the past

When Sensei Berry visited Seattle a few weeks ago, he posed an interesting question to us: “Can you change the past?”

The immediate answer that came to my mind (and, I’m sure, to most everyone else) was: “No, you can’t.” After all, consider this classic zen story (if you are familiar with this story, please excuse my paraphrasing):

Two monks were travelling back home from a long journey. Along the way, they had to traverse a river. The river was relatively swift, but easy enough for them to cross. However, when they got to the river they noticed a young woman who was also trying to cross, but the river was too swift for her to manage. Although the monks’ order was strict in regards to no contact with women, the elder monk showed no hesitation in lifting the woman and carrying her across the river.

The younger monk was stunned, and remained so for the duration of the journey. When at least their temple came into view, the young monk finally had the courage to exclaim: “Master, our order states that we must never have contact with women, yet you carried that woman across the riverbank!”

The elder monk turned and said simply: “I left her at the other side of the river. Do you carry her still?”

The meaning of this story seemed clear: the past is the past, and dwelling upon it does little good.

When Sensei Berry, then, posed his question to us, more than one of us said that you cannot change the past. And, if anyone is like me, there might have been some smugness in thinking we had the “right” answer. Imagine my surprise then, when Sensei Berry said emphatically:

“Of course you can change the past!”

That statement got my attention, to say the least. You can change the past? How? Aikido is powerful, but it doesn’t give you the ability to alter time, does it?

Sensei Berry continued (and, again, I paraphrase): “Each day you have the opportunity to grow. When you grow, you change how you look at your life. When you change how you look at your life, you change your life. This is because the only time that exists is now.”

I’ve thought about this a lot since the seminar. You see, one of my bad habits is to berate myself for things I’ve done in the past. To say that I am an extremely harsh critic of my own actions would be an understatement. There are memories of my junior high and high school years that, to this day, bring me pain when I think of them. Nothing unusual–in fact, I would say my experiences growing up were almost numbingly typical. What has been atypical is my difficulty in recognizing that everyone makes mistakes, and no one goes through life with the knowledge of knowing exactly what to do or exactly what to say. Changing how I deal with my past has been a pivotal part of my Aikido training… and I feel I’ve made some progress. But one thing I had always said to myself: “The past is the past, I cannot change it.”

After some thought, I admit that my previous thinking was too limited, and that Sensei Berry is right. The only time that matters is now. Therefore, what we think of as the past is really our current perception of past actions. When I change my perception, I in essence change my past actions! How I live and think suddenly moves from being a linear process to a spherical one; with myself in the now, standing in the middle, and my perception and thoughts radiating outward towards what we term the future and the past. This is hard to envision, but I hope this makes some sense.

Going back to the story of the two monks: I said it seemed that the story was telling me that the past was unchangeable and not worth dwelling upon. I think I was wrong. The story is more closely aligned with Sensei Berry’s statement: there is only the now, the present. What happens when we let that simple thought guide our actions?