Tonight at Aikido our sensei mentioned something that hit home pretty hard. He mentioned that the difference between aikido and other martial arts is its focus on effecting change in the world – without causing pain. The idea is to alleviate conflict without causing harm to your aggressor.
And this got me to thinking a little about how we can be better people. And by “we”, I primarily mean myself. Since leaving Christianity – and suffering the anger and pain associated – I have dealt my fair share of pain toward others who are still in the faith. It just did not seem fair that those inside the faith should be allowed to call me a liar or be so aggressive toward me. I am discovering that my ordeal was not as intense as some others have it, but still it was painful. Yet my response was not one to alleviate pain, but was often reactionary and somewhat emotionally violent toward those who disagreed with me.
Our sensei pointed out that aikido is about teaching to alleviate the internal turmoil in a peaceful way. And to be honest, I am horrible at this. Yet he also pointed out that aikido is one of the slowest martial arts to learn. It is far easier to learn to cause pain than to subdue an aggressor without causing pain back. And I confess I find a lot of wisdom in this and realize that I have a lot to learn about communicating the ideas I believe in without causing pain to others. I suppose it is the difference between a hell, fire, and brimstone preacher and your mountain-top guru. The former may effect changes, but he creates a lot of turmoil and pain in the process. The latter effects changes by refusing to cause pain to others.
I don’t know if anyone is going to read this or get anything out of it, but I thought I would post it just to let others maybe see a little bit of something I am learning.
- Josh
One of the things I have enjoyed about Martial arts(training) through the years is the aspect that you can hit someone(who also trains) and even though it may hurt they dont take it that way. It is a “respectful violence”. Very therapeutic. Oh, and dont kid yourself, Im sure when Aikido is applied it hurts. Lol. ;)
Yes, yes, Aikido hurts a lot when it is applied… but it never actually causes physical damage if done properly :) I think…
Hey! How many martial artists have we? Gotta ask over at de-con.
So when did you start Aikido Josh? I did probably a cumulative 2 years of it. Never took any rank in it though. Very interesting art. And you are right about it being slow to learn. Frankly all the grappling arts are slow to learn.
I think that I try to apply Aiki-like principles in my conversation. To me Dale Carnegie is sort of the Aiki master of communication. His methods are, like Aikido, all about redirecting what the other person does so as to eliminate clashes and neutralize aggression.
Nice thinking and analogy.
but it never actually causes physical damage if done properly :) I think…
Geez, you almost sound like a Pastor. ;)
lol at T4T
And I just started Aikido. I’m planning on sticking with it… it seems like such a good sport.
Josh:
OOC what are you looking for in studying Aikido? SInce there are scads of different things people go into MA for, I always like to hear from folks on this topic.
LeoPardus,
I began studying Aikido because my old boss Michael got really good at it and my friend Alex is a blackbelt. I’ve always been curious about the arts and knew I needed to get out and socialize and meet people. So it seemed a fitting way to go.
Then when I started learning about the difference between Aikido and other martial arts I got even more curious and ever since I’ve been enjoying myself. The spiritual side of the sport is attractive to me as well. I’ve been toying around with the idea of developing aikido for argument… the idea being to take someone’s else’s offensive argument and subdue them. I’m hoping it will work for people trying to witness to me…
Cool. It would be interesting to see Irime Nage on “Jesus died for you”. :)