Theoretical Learning

Below is a reworked but messier draft…

Theory can give a thing a semblance of order and structure. It simplifies. The pieces in the theory can then be more thoroughly identified and become bite-sized and comprehensible. The pieces make sense relative to each other i.e. they’re internally coherent. The organization and the simplicity enable the student to examine and understand more deeply. In short, a theory can be a tool that helps look at the thing in question.

1. It can be like a map that helps you go into new territory, although it may not account for everything you encounter and it may even be inaccurate (e.g., outdated) in some ways.
2. It can be like a sporty car tire that helps you go faster and have more control, although it may make for a bumpier ride, restrict what surfaces you can go on, and wear out faster than a regular tire.
3. It can be like a hammer that pounds in nails, although it is not meant to drive screws or cut wood.

Theory and Value. (“Value” could be thought of here as synonymous with “criteria” and “priority”.) By the very act of simplifying, a theory omits some details and includes others. By such discriminating and emphasizing, the aspects of a situation, and accordingly of courses of action, that are pointed out to a person using a theory will vary. The more accepting a person is of a theory, the more they will accept its emphases. The more one accepts, or takes in, certain things as being important or not important, that person is internalizing a sense of value.

At first glance, this could be taken as possibly occurring in a cold, unfeeling way. If I’m gradually internalizing a particular sense of distance, for example, not only am I paying attention to distance, I’m also gaining a sense of what distance is more comfortable, what is too close. The emotional content is often too easily dismissed. When someone hits their target, there is a probably a feeling, like “Yes!” rather than a Terminator-like distant awareness that a target was hit. When someone is about to hit their target, there is also probably a feeling, an urge, also. Although through self-mastery and mastery of skills, we strive to reduce the degree to which our feelings stand in our way, without any urges or motivation we will not excel or hone ourselves, but stay in a state or level where no particular “specialness” (e.g., concentrating, being curious, etc.) is necessary. (Of course a relevant paradox here is that at the highest levels of self-mastery one can be “usual” (‘heijoushin’) yet act in very refined ways. Yet the recognized process is that one eventually, gradually, ultimately attains a “usual” state, which is to say one is not that way from the beginning nor forces his way there too early.)

There is a dynamic, not static and unchanging, relationship between progress (i.e., increasing one’s capacity to realize the theory) and an individual’s grasp of a theory. As they both improve, they affect each other. In the beginning, when a person is putting a theory into action, they may be very limited in the range of situations they’re able to realize the theory. Depending on whether or how much a person can act freely in a situation, their valuation of all the aspects of the situation will surely vary accordingly. That person will perceive, notice, appreciate, dismiss, fear, avoid, embrace, wait, become harried, become defensive, etc. about the situation and its aspects depending on how he can (or feels he can) act relative to that situation. If a person perceives a possible situation to be hopeless or pointless, or pleasurable and safe, that perception is based on that person’s current sense of value. If you perceive someone as rageful and not listening, you may look down on them, stay away from them, not care or want to comfort them, perceive no conversation as being possible, etc. Regardless of whether you identify your values as respectful, caring, curious, compassionate, etc. if you perceive the situation as impossible for you to act on those values, then in reality (i.e., the effect, the consequences, etc.) it is virtually the same as if you did not have those values. And whether or how much you can act on your values depends on how you have developed your capacity to act until that point. And your capacity to act is closely related to how you see and assess situations, and how you form your expectations of situations.

Also, a theory as compared with a tool can define what “good/poor use” is. If we get a hammer and everything starts to look like a nail, then we use the hammer to fix things, say a stuck doorknob, and we may not mind leaving dents and dings in things. And we assess situations as changeable, doable, “can’t be helped just live with it”, “everything’s fine and if you’re bothered or hurt then it’s you’re problem”, etc. depending on the way we see the world as we conceptualize it – and conceptualizing the world and how we can be or act in it is what a theory influences us in doing. If we have a hammer and encounter something like a pillow or sponge, then we may perceive that there’s no job to be done at all because we’ve “developed” to the point of judging jobs that really really don’t fit a hammer as not doable.

Critiquing a theory. Just as there can be presumed no theory that fits reality without any adjustment, assimilation, or ‘filling in the gaps’, there is no one reason why a theory doesn’t “work”. One individual may struggle to progress as a particular theory prescribes “progress”, but ultimately progress in another direction. Another may struggle to progress in general. Is the tool very difficult to learn how to use? Both of the above may be “reading” the theory accurately or faithfully. Yet others may find themselves going in similar directions due to prematurely, inaccurately, or shallowly interpreting or assimilating the theory. Does the tool, say a hammer, influence you to identify and neglect jobs, say seeing everything as nails or not nails? So there are any number of reasons as there are individuals for the implementation of a theory to go awry.

Another thought is that a theory may fit poorly with reality. While this may be the case, there is often another (mis)judgment often made: that a theory doesn’t fit reality when in fact it is very deep or complex and the depth and understanding required by the individual is accordingly extreme. Many people give up on aikido and conceive a personal interpretation of its implementation after a premature assimilation. Many people form pseudo-religious beliefs based on a premature grasp of actual religion or even actual science. When there are a great many people around who are examples of the theory “not working”, we may assess that the theory is bad. But in fact it may just be a case of seeing a very widespread, common tendency among humans to do that same thing – in this case, to prematurely assimilate a theory and possibly use it for something other than what it was originally meant.

To take religion as an example, there are many functions and manifestations. One is to use it for a way to create and maintain a certain order or social organization. Another is to, as an individual, find meaning and efficiency in one’s life; by finding “peace” and “purpose/meaning” a person doesn’t expend excessive amounts of their energy and time on this earth worrying, fighting needless battles, etc. Certainly these aren’t the only functions but with even just these two examples we can see potential overlap. An individual may find meaning in creating social order and harmony through religion, for instance. However, another individual may find meaning or peace in creating a social order by oppressing or controlling others; if we see many examples of this, we may judge that religion in general is at fault or is a risky tool for humankind to use because it can be misused.

We may see a specific theory or religion as having ‘too many’ failed or bad examples and judge it not to ‘work’. We may also see a specific religion and find its orientation very much a ’stretch’, foreign or bizarre, and thereby not be interested in what it puts into order and helps to navigate, let alone how well or poorly it navigates it.

There is possibly an American take on this, at this point. We in this culture tend to desire rationality and order. A tool is either good or bad. If it’s not, then it’s completely relative. It seems to be difficult for people in this culture to see it as ‘good in most cases’. Hence most people’s views on theories such as aikido or religion tend to be very personalized or very generalized. That is, we have a conception of “this is how I and my group implement it” and, often times simultaneously, “these (ways a, b, c, etc.) are how others implement it” as opposed to “this is how people generally implement it and here is how my group and I specifically do so, but in general we are all doing the same thing.” This latter approach seems to be held by many to some degree but it begins to fall apart at a relatively shallow level. For instance, we may say, “People doing aikido generally are seeking some sort of peace and thriving, but the way those people over there do it is either a very different understanding of peace and thriving or at the least I can’t see myself implementing the theory as they do.”

Objections to learning/acting from theory as opposed to practical experience seem to be a mix of several components:

1. “Does the theory try to …” This wording reflects a confusion around personifying the theory, and also mixing up the originator, or original intention, of the theory and the proponents/users of the theory. Does the map try to account for every rock in a forest, every bench in a city? Does the sporty tire try to drive on all surfaces? The question is better phrased, “Is it meant to do such and such?”
2. There can be a distinction between what the theory describes and what it prescribes. Does having a map mean you’ll get to where you want to go? That there are no cars, construction sites, or pot holes to watch out for?
   
3. Related is the matter of, how much do we expect the user to adapt his behavior so that the theory is useful? And how much do we expect him to think on his own, to be able to fill in the blanks?  If one street name described on a map is changed from when the map was made, is the rest of the map thrown out of whack? And how much would we expect to be reasonable for someone reading the map to be thrown off? If a sporty tire was designed to fit well-paved, smooth roads, would we assign responsibility to the person who chose to buy it or the people who maintain the roads, if the local roads were not well-paved? If someone who’s never seen a hammer or nail before receives a hammer and pot of stew that needed stirring …
4. Another related matter is, what if the user uses the theory poorly or for some other purpose than originally intended? Do we blame how much of a “gap” the theory left for the user to have to figure out? Do we assess how much effort the user made in figuring out how the theory should and could be used before they made their own interpretation? Do we go and find out what the originator of the theory intended the use to be? How much effort do we make to put ourselves in the originator’s shoes? If we see many people using the theory in one way, particularly poorly, do we rely on their apparent assimilation and use, or do we find out for ourselves? If we see others riding around with sporty tires and putting up with heavy vibration, do we accept that that’s what we should put up with also?
   

A theory that doesn’t stir up objections probably does not deal with something that is complex or has many exceptions, and is clear earlier about what its scope is. Unfortunately, human beings exhibit a yearning for simplifying complex or inexplicable matters, and therefore give much attention and feeling (e.g., hope, skepticism, suspicion, longing) to such theories.

A person who prefers not to learn or act from theory, and instead prefers practical experience, probably does not like the task of filling in the blanks (“reading the manual” before taking action), figuring out what the originator of the theory was thinking, or relying on a “manual” or “troubleshooting guide” instead of figuring it out on his own. Such a person may also know that putting a theory into action requires some kind of figuring out anyway, so why waste time on potentially irrelevant details and levels of detail.

- that is, does the tool actually do the job well? and does it do the job it is presumed to do? Another objection is how the tool can influence which jobs the user perceives. If I have a hammer, maybe I only look around for nails, maybe everything starts to look like nails. If I have a car with off-road tires, maybe I’m looking more often at dirt paths and overlooking paved roads. So I might start doing some jobs poorly because I try to use a tool that isn’t the best fit. Accordingly I may gradually see less and less how it isn’t a best fit – that in fact it works just fine. I reckon that most of the time the blame gets cast on the theory or the very idea of learning from theory. Other times the blame goes to the teacher of the theory. Fewer times, blame may be associated with the student and his/her ability to figure out how the rubber meets the road.

The proponents of a theory, both teachers and enthusiastic students, will at some point prescribe how the rubber should meet the road. By prescribing, not describing, the person gains an expectation that the world will happen according to the theory and not the other way around. If the expectation is strong or stubborn, it reflects an attitude by which the person does not want to be disappointed, contradicted, etc. – in any case, this is a tangent about how the expectation is held by the individual.  The expectation itself is a reflection of the proponent’s grasp of the nature of the road, what can be expected to happen when they meet, etc. This entails emphasizing and dismissing different aspects as important or not (e.g. does it matter if the tire makes noise against the road, does the tire need to be on specific rims, etc.). “How the rubber meets the road” is also related to presumptions regarding the theory. Is the theory meant to encompass all cars and surfaces? Does a proponent of the theory presume it to do so? Does the person presume the theory to be a formula or recipe that will somehow fit all of the possible variations of circumstances? Or that the circumstances are not so complex or variable that the theory couldn’t account for them?

This is problematic when the proponents are seeing the situation very inaccurately/skewed and rubber wouldn’t meet the road well in reality. So the theory might be very much in an imaginary world, out of touch with reality, regardless of how internally coherent it is. It is also problematic when the rubber meets the road in reality only if the rest of reality would fit with the theory (i.e., the theory is extremely limited to specific situations in reality). With respect to theories involving people, it is indicative when the proponents of the theory, in order for the theory to be valid, need to have a lot of “bad guys” and people who “don’t get it”, and excuses in general. And it’s not that having excuses and exceptions  is nonsensical or delusional, or invalidate the theory. In the case of tires, we could say that road noise actually doesn’t matter if we’re talking about an off-road tire. In the case of people, there may actually be people who are exceptions, such as people under the influence of drugs, people hearing and reacting to sounds that aren’t there, etc.

In my own experience, I try to notice when my learning of a theory starts to demand changes in my sensibilities and values. One of the main, common changes demanded is regarding the situations that fit the theory. For example, I may learn counseling skills, which usually are in the form of talk therapy. However, the things that I learn, such as giving voice to one’s experiences and feelings,  may not work with people who do not describe their own internal experiences well, whether due to lack of vocabulary or lack of awareness, or both. So does the counseling I know only work with aware and educated people? Does counseling work with only certain people? And if I wanted to counsel unaware and uneducated people with my current capacities, would I have to give them vocabulary lessons and awareness training first? And if they didn’t want to do those lessons and training, would I dismiss them or tell them that their problem is lack of motivation as evidenced by not wanting to take my lessons and training? In the end, if I made these demands (because my theory doesn’t meet the proverbial road) I wouldn’t put my theory to use unless reality, or the “outside world”, fit the client. What would “counseling” mean to me, then?

In the context of aikido, the rubber can meet the road in several ways. One way is the cliche topic of “does it work in a fight?”. Would I demand that my opponent attack only in specific, “aikido-type” ways? And if they didn’t accommodate me, I wouldn’t put my “aikido skills” to use but instead hit them or run away? What would my grasp of “aikido skills” be, then?

Instead of dismissing the theory, I might revisit my grasp of the theory, as well as how the theory has been presented to me by my teachers. The best example is when my teachers demonstrate to me what is clearly the theory meeting the proverbial road. Depending on how they perceive what they are doing, they might say it’s the theory at work or that it’s just how they do it. In other words, depending on how the teacher frames it to me, the student, I might see them teaching me via theory or the practical application.

In cases where it’s framed as the theory, there might very well be (to the student anyway) a big gap between what the theory is saying, apparently, and how it functions in reality. How to bridge this gap? I think it depends on both the skill of the teacher’s teaching and the student’s learning. Both of these are related to a sense of value. Specifically, more than what to emphasize or dismiss regarding the rubber meeting the road, but how to develop oneself as someone able to meet the road. That is, whether I meet the road or not, how, as the student, am I developing myself?

If I am a student counselor, then I may learn talk therapy as well as art therapy so that I can work with various clients. What if I never learn of dance or movement-based therapy? If at some point I learn the principle that by learning talk therapy and art therapy, I am learning about various ways clients might express themselves, then the idea of movement-based therapy might not be another “add-on” to learn. Likewise, if I learn the principle that aikido is about how to move oneself and touch another person (that happens to be taught via certain forms), then if circumstances don’t allow me to move according to a form, my body may still have a sense of how to move skillfully, and if circumstances restrict me to touching a person in specific ways different from the forms I learned, then perhaps I will still have a sense of how to touch them.

Both learning from theory and from practical experience may address only how the rubber meets the road, how to expect the road to be, how the rubber should be, etc. However, the common point that makes either or both of these approaches work well could be the consideration given to how the student and teacher are continuously developing themselves to be the “tire”, and how to be regardless of whether they will meet the “road”. As well having and developing awareness regarding what one is valuing as important or dismissing as unimportant is crucial.

Seminar – taking stock

• “The Animal” – Clark sensei responded to someone who was basically commenting how it “feels like nothing” when you do the technique and your partner falls down. Perhaps the question was, how do you assess and improve the skill if you can’t feel when you succeed? Clark brought up the concept of the “animal” that we feed with the feeling of success or otherwise working away at something (eg wrestling with someone, overpowering someone). Getting better at technique means becoming able to do technique in a way that doesn’t give you that feedback that “feeds the animal”. Conversely, if feeding the animal is your incentive for practicing, then your technical improvement will accordingly stay at a level at which you can still feed the animal. To move on, you have to starve it.
  An immediate thought I had was how the animal can adapt to different “diets”. And, because the animal isn’t being fed by the initial diet, I might be in danger of feeding it without noticing. This is a question of  internal awareness and introspection, one that could be the biggest one I took away from that weekend. It was one of those “Ag!” moments where I realized I didn’t really understand what my teacher was getting at years ago. I’ve already had a couple of “Ag!” occasions where I thought I understood why Endo sensei was so persistent about the idea of feeling oneself and not being captivated by the partner to the point of not noticing or ignoring the partner.
  My “project” now is to notice the animal’s current diet.
• The value of a group to which you belong, or a “kai”.
  Talking with some of the Jiyushinkan people, I could see on one hand how much they were developing as human beings from their practice because they belonged to a coherent, cohesive group. Belonging entails having a set a values, priorities, relationships, reference points – all of which entail having an identity. Paradoxically, being able to have an identity enables a person to question themselves and thereby grow.
  On the other hand, and this is not a piece that is strictly wedded to being in a group, there is the aspect of “other”. That is, belonging to a group influences how you see people outside of the group and how your experience is when you encounter such people. The main, possibly only, danger lies here, in that that development of “other” could go poorly. Precisely because the danger lies here, a person’s way of mitigating that danger is to initiate encounters with it (ie interact with “others”) and continue to be/become the person he/she is trying to become. So, if belonging to a group involves any related danger, it is to minimize exposure to “other” and increase the possibility of a person’s grasp of “self” and “other” to go awry.
• Premises and assumptions.
  Examining the assumptions that I place myself under in my practice is a good way to contemplate why I am practicing, what I think is important, how I prioritize, what I’m trying to get out of it.
  To start from specifics, I think I don’t value reversals as much as I value absorption and efficient use of energy. I probably value continuity more than intentional acceleration/deceleration. I think I value surrendering myself to my partner’s actions more than consciously deciding or knowing what we are doing from moment to moment.
  I probably value demanding, or encouraging, a pre-decided form to happen by making my own openings rather than my partner’s openings apparent. This could have something to do with boundaries, but particularly when I’m dealing with someone I’m not familiar with or with a beginner, I will be more likely to leave the windows of opportunity open, and close them with people I’m more familiar with and of a higher level. Of course the premise is that I think one dimension of an interaction with a partner is awareness of who they are and when something is being artificially, rather than organically, given/taken. I don’t know if this reflects my attitude on social context or my aikido development.
  Why? Why choose these assumptions? For the first assumption, at the risk of providing an evasive answer, I like “neru” practice. I like the idea of striving for unconscious awareness and accepting whatever comes. As mentioned above, with a higher level partner I can “keep a channel open” for my own agenda (eg attacking and putting them down, or reversing) but it’s not an emphasis.
  As for the second assumption, again at the risk of an evasive answer, I think that that is more in accordance with my philosophy of life at this point. It’s likely also how I’ve “starved my animal”, at least in one way.

Judging

I like analysing people. Now I try not to focus on judging others, guessing what they are like and what they might be thinking about, but I still watch others in the street to observe the way they walk.

Since I can remember, I’ve never really gotten how people seem to use the word “judge”. It seems to carry a negative connotation. “Assess” seems to make some people feel better. I wonder if people’s negative take on “judge” has something to do with perceiving that one is separate with others, that one can observe the world and not be a part of it.

I have a thing with posture. It might have something to do with my bad eyesight. I notice posture/comportment from far away – it enables me to identify people when I can’t see their face. Not only do I notice it in a pure sense, I notice it in a subjective sense i.e., if someone’s posture is really bad or really good, I take notice. I can acknowledge that I’m noticing because it’s good or bad – I don’t mind too much saying so. Perhaps this is when people don’t like the word “judge”. “Who are you to say that person’s posture is good/bad?”

But the bottom line is a significant part of why I notice what I notice is due to my subjective experience of the thing. The above has been about good/bad, possibly beautiful/ugly. What about other dimensions?

For example, at some point in aikido I started to pay attention to whether a person really meant to attack and experience the prescribed technique of the moment with me, or they meant to sort of attack, sort of let me do the technique but more fall down by themselves, sort of attack but be more concerned with blocking my atemi, prevent me from doing what we’d supposedly agreed upon, etc. This is not a simple good vs bad kind of aspect, yet I would say that it has to do with “judgment”.

Subjectively, the degree to which I experienced my attention being drawn to this aspect probably puts me more at the sensitive end of the spectrum. It was something that pushed my buttons. Thus it was about attachment and something I have worked on. However, though I’d like to be free of the attachment, I never thought to give up on becoming a better and better judge of people’s intentions.

As I got more and more accurate, and more and more free of becoming attached/captivated, I became more and more able to see the situation. The current situation as what came before and what’s reasonable (not forced) to happen next. Thus, in aikido techniques, the interaction with the partner could happen earlier, time-wise. However, from my perspective it is happening at the right time. “Early” is only relative to the point in time I perceived our interaction as starting as I would have reported one year ago, ten years ago, etc.

If someone is about to attack me in practice, and I can tell they don’t like me or have some problem with me, I try to see it, see how I am with having perceived that, and accept it all. If I don’t like that I’m feeling my partner is being suspicious of me or scared of me or whatever, I don’t think to stop judging  – stop judging because I might not be right or because judging only introduces information that is possibly useless. Not only is it (to deal with attachment and greater self-awarness) part of my area of interest and motivation to do such a practice as aikido, it is also relevant to the execution of technique on an “aiki” level, territory I think I’ve started to delve into recently.

As a human being, it makes sense to me to take into account how a person’s emotional state is when I am try to see all of how a person is. As a human being who is in the learning process, it makes sense to take advantage of my strengths in the process; if I am more adept at noticing certain details, I should continue, not stop, to refine the noticing of those details so that it serves me in my learning. If I notice something because it makes me feel good or bad, so be it. It is not the assessing, judging, or noticing that is counterproductive but the attachment to and captivation by the same.

Moving Forward in Discussions

This week of 2/15/09 on NPR (search online for “Holder’s ‘Cowards’ Comments Examined“(?)), there was a distinct part of the exchange in which the two people were discussing one of their speeches or essays. One person was critical, saying that he perceived that the writing’s focus on negative aspects of race-related discussions today was negating to all of the progress that has been made in the past few decades, that the focus ignored how different and positive it is for youth today compared to youth of thirty years ago. The author of the writing returned that he fully understood all of the progress that had been made as mentioned by the first person, but that that was not the topic of his writing – what was the topic were things that needed to be faced next. So the first person felt that, by its omission, it was being negated and overlooked. But here we have the author himself telling us he wasn’t doing that. Furthermore, we are given a description of his perspective and background which lend credibility – credibility that we are hearing the truth.

(Admittedly taking his side, here,) how is he supposed to compose a speech/essay that is concise and to the point, without digressing on a related but different tangent only to placate people with certain preconceptions and preoccupations? If we say that his essay has as a primary objective to reach everyone, including those who need placating, perhaps he in fact does need to spend some time on the digression. After all, his composition doesn’t come into this world into a vacuum, but into various contexts, which includes various audiences and respective interpretations. Perhaps, at the very least, a digression expressing what the goal of the composition is and what it consciously avoids would be valuable. On the other hand, we could say it’s the onus of the audience to deal with their own preoccupations and preconceptions. If they take in a composition (or read a book, see a movie, hear something from someone, etc.) and receive something that the creator never intended, shouldn’t they question how much was due to their own “junk”? In fact, isn’t the individual who is making the mis/re-interpretation the best person to have insight of what is happening to lead him to such an interpretation at all? And finally, since this is about communication, the format is relevant. If it is a conversation between two people, the speaker has the opportunity to get a sense of how the listener is receiving the words, and accordingly tweak what is being said. If it is an essay that has been completed, then the author does not have such an opportunity. The author’s skill in “pre-reading” the potential audiences’ reception may become apparent. Also, the audience may need to give the author the benefit of the doubt about what the author is striving to convey, precisely because they do not have the opportunity to hear the author’s clarifications.

In discussions about practitioners of aikido of different aspirations, the “moving forward” often becomes derailed by similar divergences of views and interpretations [1][2]. The people who have the knee jerk reactions of the defensive sort when they hear someone calling them or implying that they are “hobbyists”, evidently associate the idea of doing something as a hobby with doing something with little worth, little meaning, little benefit, little beauty, etc. Even if we consider something most people can probably grasp as a hobby, such as building birdhouses, tending a garden, or restoring old cars – for all of these things we can probably see the person doing it not as a professional yet investing much time, effort, energy, and money, attaining pleasure, peace, meaning, etc. and even bringing joy and benefit to others. How is it that “it’s a hobby” becomes “just a hobby”? Can the person hearing “just” acknowledge that that is what their mind is inclined to attach? Also, can such a person come up with an alternative word that is somehow more placating or satisfying? Would it help to assign a different word to those who are obviously more serious/invested? “Amateur”? “Apprentice”?

Without acknowledging and accounting for the objective of statements, conversations, terminology, and for the perspectives and formats of communication, then the discussions can’t move forward. And moving forward is inevitably going to include encountering some unsavory topics. In the case of race, it could include the topic of how to practically address differently different people’s socioeconomic positions as it related to their history. In the case of aikido, it could be about topics such as how teachers should be expected to treat different students differently, and what kind of discriminating treatment students should expect and tolerate. Recognizing that our discussion isn’t moving forward, assessing why it is so, and settling on some basic common ground are essential pieces of a complicated discussion. Without these pieces, it could be like talking about traveling together to the other side of the planet but not agreeing whether to start eastward or westward; like agreeing to travel some place relaxing or exciting but not agreeing where that is and even presuming the other person is thinking the same thing as oneself; like planning a trip somewhere with someone, with one person intending to stay for a few days and another for months, and packing the car accordingly.

Wise mistakes

Short quote from “In the Beginning was the Command Line” by Neal Stephenson:

Sometimes their lack of a broad education makes them over-apt to go off on intellectual wild goose chases…

It resonated with me for some reason, as I re-read this essay after some years. The most obvious reason it resonated was because I agreed with it (or I found it agreed with me, or it was agreeable to me, etc.). However there is one very obvious part of it that was different from what I’d been thinking. It was different but still fit. Where I had been thinking “wisdom”, he writes “a broad education”.

My conception of wisdom is some sense of efficiency related to achieving comfort, avoiding trouble, finding peace of mind, accomplishing one’s goals. Experience is one component for sure. Another is receptivity and openness. Yet another is constructive self-doubt and ego. One finds oneself making fewer mistakes, taking into account one’s weaknesses, wasting less time as one becomes wiser. How one oneself experiences this could be a combination of gut feeling as well as some insight (eg knowing why one is apprehending a situation as one does, why one is behaving as one does).

One presumption I may have been making was to consider wisdom outside of the context of education level, so that it would apply to someone with folk or street smarts.

What comes to mind now are people who succumb to mystification of one kind or another and spend a lot of time pursuing that myth, look at things from within that myth, while simultaneously viewing themselves as knowing and inquiring “enough” or even more than average.

Three contexts in which this is apparent are aikido, psychology, and international/multicultural being.

In aikido, one may have a teacher who is truly skilled or just impressive or convincing. That is, the teacher doesn’t act as a catalyst, directly or not, for the student to venture out from their comfort zone and experience things “outside”. “Outside” could be practice in a certain manner in the same place with the same people. It could also mean in unfamiliar places, or with unfamiliar premises, emphases, frameworks, beliefs, and values. Despite staying within comfort and familiarity, one can certainly find things to work on and challenges, to all of which one can say, “I’m doing my best!” But a) how to tell if those things and challenges are in fact worthwhile or going to lead you to what you wish to arrive at, and b) how to tell if the way you’ve been going about it thus far has covered all the possibilities. The most powerful limitation of possibility is not knowing you are limited. If you’ve gone to the ends of the earth according to the map you’ve been living by, then of course why would it occur to you to venture further or look out elsewhere? How could you possibly see the map differently when it already makes sense? It tells you the edge of the earth looks like so, you go there and see that it does, the map tells you that there are stars and moons out there and here’s how to get to them isn’t that challenging, and you find that yes, it is challenging isn’t it? That is, here are the techniques, here is what’s important to consider when doing them, here’s how to do them well or better, yes it’s challenging, off you go now, practice practice practice!

If I originally see things in terms of angles and off-balancing directions, what process might I go through when I practice aikido with folks who are more concerned with energy and flow? I might be able to conceptualize whether they’re doing the same thing I’m doing at all. I may also be able to see how it can be so. Based on the broader education of these two paradigms, when I encounter an aikido that has as its premise partners’ reactions to openings for strikes that aren’t necessarily taken by the other partner, then I may more quickly see what they’re trying to accomplish with what they do, how they do it, and further down the line how it relates to what I was doing originally.

Psychology… That one’s way to big and many – I’ll leave it alone.

Culture. That one is close to psychology but again it comes back to how to see oneself, recognize the lens through which one sees and experiences. How can you know your own culture to any conscious level without seeing how other cultures are. I’m sure many people living abroad would say something along the lines of, “The longer I live away from the US, the better I come to know this culture, the more and more I know in my bones I am an American”. It’s really difficult to know that one doesn’t know without contrasting experiences. The questions precipitated by contact with other cultures (“Why do they eat like that? Why do they show respect like this? Why do they not care about time like us? Don’t they want privacy like you and me? etc.”) will make it much easier to organize and make into bite-size chunks the things one subsequently notices, sort of at least, about one’s own culture. So there’s the experience and exposure. And the education probably does a great deal as far as training one to verbalize, ask certain questions, follow certain lines of inquire, and possibly even have tools to see the tools with.

Two CAA Essays

Gōdan Essay

Chuck Hauk
Aikido of Eugene
April 2007

“I’m sick and tired of her scamming us and I’m gonna’ evict her!” one of my co-workers said, angrily, about one of our residents.  I’ve worked in social services for over thirty years and for the last fifteen years I’ve worked at a Public Housing Authority.  I deal with low-income folks on a daily basis.  Many of them are under-educated, are just getting by day-by-day economically, are involved in negative relationships, have poor coping skills, and are often angry about their lot in life.  Some of them “scam” social service systems as a way of life, trying to maximize the benefits they receive in a time of decreasing budgets and limited options.  My co-worker’s frustration was showing that day; she was angry that one particular Public Housing resident was hiding household income, allowing unauthorized persons to stay with her in her subsidized rental unit and, in general, flaunting her almost continual violation of the rules.  The worker was going to evict the resident – which she was legally entitled to do — and she had worked herself into a feeling of righteous indignation as a prelude to doing that.

I sat down in her office and asked her if she had taken a look at the life this resident was living.  “You know, she’s living in a small, crowded three-bedroom rental unit with three kids.  Her 17-year-old has been arrested a couple of times and is facing time in jail.  We know that her mother, with whom she doesn’t get along, has moved in with her, without getting authorization and without reporting her income to us, which means she’ll owe us back rent for the unreported income.  Her last boyfriend, who was also living there without authorization, has left her pregnant.  She now has a new boyfriend, who is also living there without authorization.  She’s having a tough pregnancy, physically, and she wasn’t able to pay her rent last month and is now facing losing her subsidized housing and being put out on the street.”

“You don’t have to make this personally,” I told her.  “You can lay out the consequences for her behavior without making her the ‘bad guy.’ It’s not personal.  She’s not out to get you.”  Then I suggested that my co-worker try something different.  “Whenever you see a resident in this type of situation – before you get angry — think about her life and then think about yours.  You have a husband who loves you and four beautiful, healthy, smart daughters; you own your own home, where you love to garden in your large backyard; you and your husband have good jobs and are able to pay your bills; you have dependable cars; you have your health and family and friends who care for you.  What do you have to be angry at her about?”

I suggested that she take a few minutes and consider the incredible obstacles facing this particular resident and compare that to her own life, before getting into a personal argument with the resident.  I reminded her that she still needed to enforce the rules but suggested that she could probably do that from a compassionate point of view – a point of view that might even result in the resident straightening up and following the rules, instead of “digging her heels in” and, ultimately, being forced to leave Public Housing.

To her credit, my co-worker listened to what I had to say and actively considered it.  She ended up, after all that, having to evict the resident but she did it in a compassionate, caring way that resulted in the resident thanking her for the way she’d been treated.  A few months later I was pleasantly surprised when the co-worker pulled me aside and told me that she hadn’t been able to forget what I had suggested and that, in several subsequent situations, she had taken the time to sit back and look at the other person’s life in comparison to hers.  She said taking the time to do this had changed the way she approached these types of conflicts; that she made it less and less personal; and that she was actually able to do a better job because she had a better overall perspective.  In a few cases, she had been able to evoke a change of behavior on the part of the residents, rather than having to push them into an eviction.

***

The above anecdote resonated with me because it seemed to clearly exemplify the author’s sense (whether developed through aikido or not) of how one can view one’s own attitude as having consequence, how one can have ownership and control over one’s attitude and maintain certain functions (e.g., performing one’s duty of enforcing the housing rules). Even more, it showed how one can “naturally” know and sense these ways we affect and participate in interactions with others. I say “naturally” only to mean that it is done without effort and thinking, and feels like, “Of course. Is there any other way to do it?”

In the beginning, these other ways – other ways to act, to perceive, to feel – are not-usual. We already have a “usual”. We learn how to move physically in other ways through a practice like aikido. Since there is no real separation between physical and mental, learning and coming to feel “natural” with the “other” ways of acting are followed or accompanied by other ways of perceiving, feeling, and experiencing. Furthermore, if we can conceive that our mind “moves” – that is, it follows certain habitual patterns, can be tense or relaxed, etc. just like our body – then we can actually be aware that our perceiving, feeling, and experiencing are “other” ways we are exercising or practicing also. Unfortunately, many people may discount the necessity to develop and nurture such awareness, perhaps with the reasoning that it is happening regardless or that the “skill”, not what it feels like to do the skill, is what is important, or that it is a flowery distraction or add-on. Of course going on through life without noticing may feel fine and dandy. But doing your practice in a way that nurtures your continuing ignorance will only make your world smaller and smaller.

The question one may find interesting or not is, if I were really advanced at aikido or simply had developed into a “big” person, what would be going through my mind, how would it feel, to avoid conflict? How would it be even if there were no overt conflict to avoid? At best, I’m sure it wouldn’t feel the same as it would be to be a person who is normal, or aggressive, employing some kind of de-escalating technique.

***

My biggest disappointment in almost 30 years of Aikido training is the realization that getting “better” at Aikido does not, necessarily, make you a “better” person.  There are plenty of Aikido students out there who are very good at Aikido techniques who don’t have the first inkling about taking Aikido principles off the mat and into their lives.  Why do we train in Aikido?  If we’re training just to become more proficient at throwing people, controlling people, “defending” ourselves against people, I’d suggest we’re missing the real purpose of this “dō” – this “way.”

I once heard an instructor say that he was disappointed that he didn’t hear the word “compassion” used more often on the mat.  His words had a strong impact on me.  I initially began my training in Aikido because it appeared to me to be a methodical, physical way of training that would result in my being more “aware.”  What I soon realized is that just training on the mat would not be enough.  The principles of Aikido have to be practiced off the mat for real change to occur.  There has to be a conscious effort to continually practice what we’re learning, in all situations – on and off the mat.  Look around you at the next seminar and watch your seniors.  Which ones do you want to emulate? In addition to their technical skills on the mat, which instructors also conduct themselves off the mat in a way that you admire – that you want to emulate?  Which instructors show integrity, caring, compassion, respect, humor, discipline, and intelligence in their day-to-day interactions with others?  I would suggest those are the instructors you should want as your role models.

As I approached my Shōdan years ago, I was fortunate to have a very technically-gifted instructor, who had been a student of a well-known Shihan.  The Shihan was quoted as saying that my instructor had been his “best student” and his “worst student,” having learned virtually everything the Shihan had to offer on the mat and virtually nothing of what the Shihan had to offer for off the mat.  This also had an impact on me.  I didn’t see the behavior in my instructor off the mat that I wanted to emulate, in spite of wonderfully powerful Aikido technique on the mat.  I took my leave of this instructor and moved on.

Why are you training?  Aikido is a martial arts “way” – it is a discipline whose real purpose is self-development, self-awareness.  The question of whether or not Aikido is an “effective” martial art is almost irrelevant.  If you are not confronting the true enemy – yourself – I would suggest you’re not truly benefiting from this beautiful art and discipline.  Almost thirty years later, I still deal with fear each time I get on the mat.  Am I really training hard enough?  Am I strong enough?  Disciplined enough?  Good enough?  Can I deal with real conflict, with strong, committed attacks that push me?  And off the mat, I still deal with similar questions.  Am I compassionate enough?  Am I working hard enough?  Am I doing the best I can?  Am I strong enough?  Disciplined enough?  Good enough?  Can I deal with real conflict, with strong, committed attacks that push me?

I’ve made progress, but I still have a long way to go.  Let me leave you with my own, personal kōan, which you are free to use:

How insufferable would I be without my Aikido Training?

In gasshō…

Living Aikido
By Diana Hedstrom
July 2006 (pdf)

John Ruskin said, “The test of a truly great man or woman is their humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of their own power. But really great people have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other person and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.” During my eight years of Aikido training I have had the privilege and honor of training under and with men and women who have, by living Aikido, demonstrated true humility and provided me with examples to strive to emulate.

As a 5th kyu, I attended my first out-of-state retreat at the California Aikido Association’s Summer Camp in California. I knew that the retreat would be attended, in large part, by yudansha; I wasn’t even sure if there would be mudansha present other than those from Aikido North. My brother Joe, a student of Aikido North, encouraged me to attend and to challenge myself by training with other Aikidoka attending the seminar. I finally agreed, surreptitiously thinking that I would train with the other Aikido North students who would surely take pity on me. The first day on the mat a yudansha bowed into me, smiling. I did the best tenkan blend I knew how; I was focused so intently on performing that I broke into a sweat from the mental and physical exertion. Immediately following that class, the same woman came up to me and politely asked how long I had been training. I’m sure that it was quite obvious to this yudansha that I was a novice. She then asked if I would like to work on some basic moves between classes. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. Not only did she work with me during class but she was willing to meet me on her “breaks” between classes, to spend her valuable training time with a 5th kyu. On that day, Yuki Hara, then a 5th Dan, empowered me with the belief that as a middle aged woman I could learn Aikido. She understood that to many older women there is a tendency to have a negative self-image – to doubt our ability to accomplish all that we are capable of doing. Yuki Sensei proved to me that women could be accomplished in Aikido; she also demonstrated one of the basic tenets of humility, selfless service. Not only did she take me under her care, she did so with the spirit of love and compassion not out of a sense of duty or a desire for recognition. Since that day, Yuki Senei has remained, as my female mentor,  “…endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful” and has exemplified for me the true nature of Aikido.

Koshiyama Sensei, my teacher, also epitomizes humility. Reverend Donna Byrns once said, “Humility gives the power to perceive situations, to discern causes of obstacles and difficulties, and to remain silent. When one does express an opinion, it is non- critically with an open mind and with recognition of specialties, strengths, and
sensitivities of the self and others.” Koshiyama Sensei personifies this tenet. As a mudansha there were times that I discussed my “concerns” about the dojo with Sensei, confident in the righteousness of my position. Many times I was dismayed when my feelings or beliefs weren’t validated by Sensei. Oftentimes he would merely sit quietly and smile; occasionally he would interject another point of view. While he was always willing and available to discuss my “concerns,” I left these discussions bewildered. I am ashamed to admit, for a number of years I couldn’t understand why he didn’t validate and support my point of view. As time passed, however, I began to reflect on some of my “concerns” and realized that my “concerns” were based on my deficiencies. Sensei could have directly answered my questions or given me specific direction, but he patiently waited for me to have my epiphany. He realized that self-reflection was critical to my growth as an Aikidoka and that by giving me direction or correcting my “wrong thinking,” my misconceptions, he would be inhibiting my growth. He accepted me with all of my misconceptions and patiently waited for signs of maturation.

Both Koshiyama Sensei and Yuki Hara Sensei have provided me with a safe, nurturing and unconditionally positive environment for growth. I have nothing worth offering them in return, nor do they expect anything from me and yet I owe them a debt of incalculable magnitude. By personifying Aikido, they have helped to shape me into the person I am today and have provided me with examples of the type of person I would like to become. Whenever I see an opportunity to assist an Aikidoka or to do service for our dojo, I am happy to volunteer so that in some small way I can emulate them and contribute back to the art of Aikido.

I liked this essay for how it touched on humility and role models. The instructor’s patience is the same kind that I’ve experienced myself and, like the author, realized I had received only years later.

Spirituality

Recently I’ve had two people interested in aikido ask me about aikido and its “spiritual” and “internal” aspects, and overheard one interesting aikido class which included some talk of similar matters. By yet another coincidence, there was this blog entry on the very same subject, which I immediately translated with gratitude (and relief) that someone else made the effort to verbalize about a subject, that likely after some years becomes internalized and hard to talk about.

Perfection – When the middle way can’t be

I’ve been playing with a question that started forming when I left Seattle a few days ago. It originally felt like the problem of integrating, or deciding on some balance between, two mutually exclusive elements. This led to the heart of the matter: what I want for myself and what I’d like to impart to others ultimately (which are basically the same, as I am one person).