Acceptance

April 18, 2012

Getting Krissie out of bed to come join me for a 7 AM Aikido class is akin to pulling the steel hull of a sunken ship from the bottom of the ocean. On the way to a recent Thursday morning class, I think I heard her murmur "putting on a gi right now is a mortal sin." I prefer morning classes. I like to “get it out of the way” before I have a chance to think too much about it. I am more prone to resist the evening classes. In the summer they are a lot hotter, Sensei is more amped up, and they conflict with that happy hour beer. We all resist training at times. The thing we can control, and what I have been working on, is my relationship to that resistance. The training itself is challenging and difficult at times, but sometimes breaking through the resistance to "showing up" is harder. This is strange because I’ve never attended an Aikido class that I haven’t enjoyed or have regretted being a part of. I’m always happy to have trained and appreciate the benefits the practice brings. These benefits include, but are not limited to: a sense of calm, increased balance, and a fount of positive energy. Aikido brings all these things, but only when you train consistently. We learn to drop our resistance to training or just stop paying attention to it. This gets us on the mat. Once on the mat, resistance resurfaces. As uke,we resist moving fast, stretching deeply, and attacking sincerely. As nage we resist by using strength instead of proper technique in an attempt to overpower our partner. Sensei speaks about “cutting away” or “dropping” what is non-essential rather than looking to add something. By cutting away our resistance we find it easier to stay connected and absorb the technique nage applies. By dropping resistance, we develop the ability to absorb and use uke’s force instead of coming into conflict with it. Naturally, resistance is dropped through dedicated practice. Cultivating the proper mindset and spirit accelerate this evolution. When there is no longer resistance, acceptance remains. -N. Landes

on discipline.

March 17, 2012

Maybe it's because I'm a product of post-sixties America, born into an anti-authoritarian culture of individual liberty and self-expression. Maybe it's because I'm the rebellious son of a tough, Italian-American mother. But I've always had issues with discipline. In the West, the word "discipline" gets a bad rap. We prize individualism and we dislike authority, which we conflate with authoritarianism. Within this framework, discipline smacks too much of conformity and humility, which we associate with fear and weakness, as opposed to bravery, creativity, and self-expression.

I see things a bit differently now. Discipline, it seems to me, is simply the decision to stick with something, in spite of all the internal and external forces that tempt you to escape from it.

For me, personally, and maybe for all acolytes of post-sixties teachings about creativity and freedom (which, if you think about it, are really a revival of the founding revolutionary spirit of the country, minus the "hard work" part), the basic confusion is this - we don't want external authorities telling us what we're supposed to do, or punishing us for failing to do it. In rejecting external authority and committing to spontaneity, inspiration, etc. as guiding stars, we tend to throw out the baby with the bath water - rejecting out of hand anything that feels like restraint. (If you doubt that this impulse is characteristically American, I invite you to watch the classic cowboy movie “Man Without a Star,” in which Kirk Douglas moves ever Westward, pursued by his deadly nemesis “the [barbed] wire!”, which is slowly but surely fencing off the once free and open frontier.)

Understanding this – and the insight hit at the age of 25 in my case – it's tempting to go and join the Marines or something - to repent and submit once and for all to the gods of Discipline, in an attempt to annihilate ego. Those allergic to all things military might find themselves, alternatively, running off to a Zen monastery to meditate 8 hours a day. For me, at least, all such drastic measures (and I’ve tried them, in various forms) are doomed to failure. What I'm capable of, and what I've managed to do at Brooklyn Aikikai for the past year and a half, is to figure out a schedule that works for me and commit to it internally - something that has only been made possible by many years of learning from life why such a commitment might be valuable.

And even so, there are days when I don't come to practice because I'm tired and I don't feel like coming. And still I sometimes feel the old anger at external authority rising in my throat at the occasional stern reminder from Kate Savoca or Sensei about what commitment to a practice means. “Oh yeah?” says the inner 16 year old... “You wanna tell me what to do? How about I never come back here again?”

But the next week, I’m back. And usually with a renewed, internal commitment to the practice of Aikido. And you know what? I’m getting stronger. Not only at Aikido, but at commitment itself. Last year I attended one seminar. Perhaps this year I’ll find a way to make it to two, or three. In other words, I’m coming to terms – my own terms – with discipline. Because the only way I can understand, accept, and practice commitment is as the decision – over the long haul – not to run away.

– Jason Gots

meido roshi at brooklyn aikikai, march 10, 2012

March 12, 2012