the duck or the dog?

June 28, 2015

In the changing room, after the 2nd kyu test we had just sat through, Diego asked me, “So what did you think of the test?” It was December, my third month in the dojo. By then, I had discovered that class often left me at a loss for words. Watching the examination, the martial nature of our training was apparent to me for the first time. I felt that in a substantial way, Aikido was a way into matters of life and death, of living and dying. Not that the practice itself was dangerous; but that the techniques were about something much deeper than form alone. And I must confess that my initial reaction to that 2nd kyu test was a feeling of fear.

Before the test, Sensei had been teaching yokomenuchi, trying to get us to understand that the techniques were really an approximation for a life or death encounter. That to execute the form properly, we had to understand the intention beneath the form, and to enter into that state of mind. During the test, it felt as though the entire dojo had entered into this state of mind; that what was transpiring between uke and nage was of the utmost importance. As they struggled with techniques, as they struggled with exhaustion, the encounters seemed to transcend intellectual categories of passing or failing. Earlier, in the autumn, Sensei had taped up in the men’s changing room a picture of a hunting dog joyfully grasping a dead duck in its jaws, running through a stream. Above it, he had written, “this is what your Shodan test should look like!” For a while, I didn’t really get it. Watching that 2nd kyu test, feeling the intensity and focus in the room, feeling afraid of that intensity and focus, I thought about that picture. I thought, “am I the dog? or am I the duck? I don’t want to be the duck. But I’m definitely not the dog.”

So I said to Diego, “It was pretty intense”. Which was maybe the most obvious thing anyone could say. He laughed at my understatement, and we parted ways for the night. As words and thought gradually came back to me that night, it hit me that the last time I had felt this way - fear in the presence of life and death encounters - was my first year out of medical school, when I was a medical intern at UCLA. Like training Aikido, it wasn’t that the medical training was actually dangerous (though it was exhausting, and often painful); but I often felt overwhelmed and unprepared. That year (and for several years after), I was unprepared both technically and spiritually. There was so much to know - about bodies, how they worked, how they broke, about tests and treatment, and most of all, about humanity and the moral and spiritual dimensions of illness, recovery, living and dying. At the beginning of my medical training, even though I was book smart, I knew very little, and my ignorance meant that I didn’t know what was going to happen to my patients. Not knowing what was going to happen to them, I didn’t feel prepared to take care of them. I was afraid I would fail them. I was afraid because I was ignorant. About 9 years later, I discovered a different kind of fear. By then, I knew a lot. And I was about as prepared as you could be to take care of someone. And even though I had a much better sense of what was going on with each of my patients, I still didn’t know what was going to happen to them. I could see which treatments had the best chance of working; but you never really knew what was going to happen until you actually did the treatment. I was faced once again with this fear of the unknowable future, except now I could see that this was not a reflection of my own shortcomings, but was a fact of life. I was no longer ignorant. But I realized that I had been attached to this idea that I could somehow control the future if I knew enough.

Around this time, I remembered an anecdote I had heard about Kanai Sensei, from the New England Aikikai. According to the story, in his early days in Cambridge he used to give classes to the Police Department. He would demonstrate a technique, and then a cop would say, “Well what about if I did this instead?” And Kanai Sensei would then show how he would respond. And then another cop would say “What if I did this instead?” And again Kanai Sensei would show his response. After a certain point, one of the cops said, “So you’re saying that no matter what I do, no matter how I come at you, you would have a technique for it?” And Kanai Sensei replied “Yes, that’s right.” And another officer, somewhat incredulous, said, “Well, can you prove it? I could just come at you right now, and you could take me down?” And Kanai Sensei again nodded, and so this officer got ready to make the Aikido instructor prove his point. Just as the cop was was about to start his attack, Kanai Sensei said to him (possibly with a smile), “Just one thing… I don’t actually know what I’m going to do to you.” That’s the end of the story, at least as I heard it. One assumes the cop did the smart thing, and sat back down.

Reflecting on Diego’s question the next day, it seemed to me that I am back in my intern days, when it comes to Aikido. I know some things, but I’m basically ignorant, and unprepared, technically, physically, spiritually. I’m not the duck, but I’m definitely not the dog. And maybe I’m afraid that I won’t become the dog (or that I’ll end up the duck). The dojo reminds me of a teaching hospital, in good ways. It’s a place that recreates life and death situations in a safe way, allowing us to investigate how our body, mind and spirit perform in these situations, to encounter our fears and attachments, and to learn and grow stronger and wiser. There is a lot of mentorship and a lot of esprit de corp, as we all struggle with these same experiences together. The apocryphal story about Kanai Sensei suggests to me that at the end of the struggle to master technique, to master exhaustion, to master one’s body and mind, there’s the even more interesting challenge to accept the limitless possibilities within each technique and within each encounter. I hope that I am able to train long enough to get to that challenge. And I’m sure that if I do get there, I will once again feel fear, at least for a while.

-A. Charuvastra

if you are not sitting...

April 30, 2015

If you're not sitting, the Sensei said, you're wasting your life.

That, more than dying and death, the pupil feared most of all. Too easily he imagined himself old and dried up on a bed worn out and sad under a threadbare blanket looking back--as the light dimmed and the warmth faded--searching through all the spent years and finding nothing of more value than a broken promise, a forgotten dream.

So he sat. Legs crossed before him, perched on a cushion, on a mat, in a line with students likely motivated by nothing as petty as insecurity, as desperate as fear. He bowed when they bowed and chanted when they chanted, not knowing what any of it meant. Worrying he was doing it all wrong, while he did it all wrong.

A bell rang. The dojo descended into silence. And, before long, the pupil was drowning in the quiet. A slow panic rose as slight discomforts grew out of proportion and his thoughts ran wild. He tried to focus on his breathing, but he barely resisted jumping up and running out the door. Eventually, the bell rang again and zazen, an eternity -- 30 minutes long-- was over. The student swore to himself he would never go back, and swore to himself he would try again. Someday. If you're not sitting, you're wasting your life. In this case, I was the student and Savoca Sensei the teacher, but the story may sound familiar to at least some of you who meditate at the dojo. As it turned out, I never went back.

Then an opportunity presented itself, thanks to the generosity of Sensei Savoca and the hard work of all the students who have raised money for scholarships. In February I was able to attend Winter Camp at Juba Nour Sensei's Baja Aikido dojo. I didn't know what to expect, other than I would be expected to attend every class, including meditation. And it was the meditation I feared even more than the legendary Bulgarians I knew would also be there.

I was right to be afraid. In addition to the Zen, we practiced Misogi every morning. As the sun rose each day I shouted along with the other students until my voice was hoarse, sitting seiza until my feet numbed and my knees screamed. Each day I felt pushed to the very edge of my tolerance.

The Misogi never got easier. If anything, it got harder, but it was gratifying to know I could do it.

A strange thing happened, however, during zazen on the day before I left. I experienced the most fleeting of epiphanies, yet the realization has stayed with me. That morning I gave up on trying to control my mind; I did not fight it or try to push down the panic. Instead, I stopped worrying about it--not altogether, but enough to begin to understand the voice in my head, the babbling stream of consciousness-- it is not me. I don' t know who I am, if I'm not that relentless narrator who never seems to shut up, but I do know now I am more than that. The day before I left, for just a moment, I was able to ignore the noise in my mind.

I didn't find enlightenment that day, but it felt like I took a step toward something important.

If you're not sitting, you're wasting your life.

I'm not sure it is possible to waste a whole life. In all these years I've lived, there have been moments that counted for something. No matter what happens in the future, I know that trip to Baja was filled with them. For that, I can't thank Brooklyn Aikikai enough. I am sure I'll waste plenty more of the few precious days I have left, but I'll have my moments, too--moments that count--and not even I can take those away from me.

-L. Tijerina

it's all about you, but it's not all about you

December 2, 2014

I've always been uncomfortable with money, especially asking for it. I come from a hard-working immigrant family and there wasn't a lot of extra income when I was young. And asking other people for money? Forget it. Every time the band fundraiser came around, I would go to the two neighbors who I knew would buy a tin of cookies without fail. The prizes for the student who raised the most never motivated me. In this area of my life, I had no problem coming in last place.

So when I heard the word "fundraiser" at the dojo, I thought, "ok, I'll do my part, I'll buy a ticket, I'll help clean, and that's that." After coming back from summer camp last year, which was paid for by a dojo scholarship, Sensei pointed at me and said, "You. You'll be good at raising money. You're going to help with the fundraiser." I wanted to tell him, "No, no, I think you might have it wrong. See, I'm terrified of asking people for money. It makes my stomach churn." Instead, I replied, "Uh, ok, yes, sure."

To maintain distance between myself and the discomfort of asking for money, I focused on logistics. If you're keeping your head down and working, no one can really find fault with you, right? It's a good way to hide. But surprise! I chose to train in a martial art that's about the opposite of hiding. “Present yourself!” Post-fundraiser, during the follow up, I messed up and some things fell through the cracks. When we discussed it as a team with Sensei, I wanted to say, "It's not my fault. I really hate money. Also, I don't know what I'm doing, and no one told me what to do." Thinking about it later, I realized that I didn't just have an issue with money. I also hesitated in stepping up, taking responsibility, asking for help, or even being ok about making decisions. It was hard to say "Yes, the buck stops with me on this. So if it's messed up, it's me. And if you need to know what else needs to be done, that's me too."

I decided this year would be different. If I saw what needed to be done, then I would step up and do it or ensure it was done by providing guidance or a helping hand. I wasn't going to look around the room and wait and see who else would do it. Shockingly, I was also excited about raising the money. What changed? I'm not quite sure. Maybe it was just an accumulation of seminars, hours, injuries, and off-the-mat experiences, but it was clear to me that the dojo was central in me seeing myself differently, and in making better choices for myself. The fundraiser was no longer only about asking people for money. If I thought about the dojo like a well from which I drew water, then I wanted to help replenish that well for myself and for others. And how long was I going to keep hiding behind my fear of money? If I was serious about Aikido, then it was time to present myself to my fear and do it. I felt this shift in attitude palpably when I accompanied Sensei to Athens in September. My sempai, Andrés, hadn't arrived yet, and even though there was a former uchideshi there, I was the only student from Brooklyn. Stepping onto the mat straight from the airport in a surreal haze of jetlag and sleep deprivation, I thought, "Shit. It's me. There's no one else."

At the same time that the fundraiser pushed me to see that “it's ME, I'm IT,” I also saw that it wasn't all me. It wasn't about me keeping my head down and trying to do everything. First, that's impossible. Second, that's hiding and will mess things up. And third, it's unfair to the large, strong community of people who are pouring themselves into the dojo in so many ways. In lifting my head up to present myself, I also got to see all the beautiful things that others were doing. Festival quality films got made, posters were designed, donations were made from around the country and the world, spaces were organized, quiches were baked, prizes were donated. Everyone was presenting themselves, and it was humbling. I guess this is the weird paradox that Aikido points to: be focused, see the target, be present, present yourself, but also see everything, also step off the line, also absorb. It is all about you, but it's not all about you. -A. Shridhar