Learning To Be Silent

By William Terrell

I have no romantic notions of what it means to be a warrior. I served in the United States Marine Corps and worked for ten years as a deputy sheriff. I have seen the dead and the dying, the deliberate and the accidental. I have seen people shot, cut, burned, beaten, strangled, crushed, even literally hammered to death. I understand how fast violence can erupt/interrupt into our everydayness and destroy our lives. My goal is simply that of any warrior/father/husband: to be prepared to protect and defend myself, my family, my community.

One of the ways I choose to do that is through Aikido. I enjoy Aikido because it is hard, because it forces me to change, because it forces me to face myself. My first Sensei was irascible and difficult but he gave me a solid foundation in some of the basics. His emphasis was on techniques for the world off the mat, especially the breaking and keeping of uke’s balance and in delivering solid strikes.

He believed (and rightly so) that Aikido is not a game nor is it a sport. Aikido is a matter of life and death. To treat it as anything less is a waste of time and an insult to the memory of O-Sensei. What we do on the mat is sacred. It is life writ small. It is tradition lived in the present. Aikido is the gift to us from O-Sensei and all those who taught him. His gift passed through Yamada Sensei to Dee Sensei to me. I am being forged as the next link in the chain.

Some critics dismiss Aikido as at best anachronistic and at worst a waste of time that instills a false sense of security in the practitioner. Would O-Sensei have developed and promoted Aikido if he did not believe it to be effective? Of course not. My answer to the critics is get on the mat and hang around long enough to understand what is going on. Feel the burn of nikkyo, the swirling confusion and abrupt reversal of irimi nage, the panic of koshi nage done full speed. Test yourself in randori. Find out how to react when facing multiple attackers. Learn that getting your lip busted or being thrown hard will not kill you. Understand the power of Aikido before passing judgment.

Accepting Aikido as a way of life has to be a choice. A choice repeated week after week, day after day. The mat is the battlefield upon which we overcome ourselves and it is in the persistence, the refusal to succumb to inertia that we are made strong. Week in and week out I get on the mat because I have to, because it satisfies a basic primal need and is a way to channel the warrior instincts. It is not just the mat, Aikido permeates my life. Even driving 100 miles round trip is in itself an act of entering, of being uke. Trying to perfect the process of resolving one conflict while looking/preparing for the next. It is in the knowing when to push and when to pull, when to enter and when to turn.

Am I absolutely prepared for anything life throws at me? Of course not.  Am I much better prepared? Indeed, I am.

By Carl Frederick

For as long as I can remember, I have been involved with the martial arts.  I connected with it, and like a musician to his instrument, I seemed to have a talent which I was able to tap into.  I remember my master in Tang Soo Do, very early on in my training, explaining to me the power of martial arts, and in particular Tang Soo Do.  He stated that what we are learning was meant for one thing, and one thing only: war.  The techniques we were learning were tried and true battlefield tactics, and were meant to kill.  But we don’t live in feudal Korea; we live in a world that prefers movie flash to real tactics.  The fact remained, however, that what we were learning was deadly, warlike, and chaotic. 

Today, martial arts are a form of self-defense, meant to be used only in the most dire of situations, and not to be taken lightly.  I am equally amazed and scared by the things that I know.  But something that I have realized in my time in Aikido, was that my Tang Soo Do master was right.  Everything I knew was chaotic.  My attacks caused injury and pain, and possibly even death.  Even my ability to block incoming attacks had a chaotic motive.  Like an immovable object meeting an unstoppable force, there was no harmony or balance in what I did.  It was simple: defend myself against an attacker, and never take a life unless no other option was feasible.  Even then, I should try to find a way.

This is what draws me to Aikido.  I have a choice whether or not to cause injury, pain or death.  In this sense, Aikido leaves you no choice, its intent is harmony and non-violence.  There is no chaos.  I also like it in the practical sense of my career–it would look bad for a police force to have a cop roundhouse kicking felons.  So I like the immobilizing, passive defensiveness of the art.  But also, it makes me realize that I don’t need to cause injury to defend myself.

Granted, I still like my “harder hitting” style.  And yes, any time there is a technique on the mat that seems more brutal, I get a gleam in my eye.  Although I don’t believe in the whole idea of “bringing uke back into harmony, and making them one with the world,” when a sociopath is willing to kill me so much as look at me, I still believe in the principle of non-violent solutions.

By Robert Carrera

Many people I know think that my martial art training is just a hobby. I continuously have to tell and show them that what I do is much more than just a hobby, it’s my life. Ever since I started my training, I have changed as a person in so many ways. For a long time I felt that there was a space, a void in my life, something missing. As soon as I started my training in the art of Aikido that space seemed to be filled. I seemed to become enlightened, completely reborn as a stronger, more confident individual. My training has also opened my eyes to an amazing, beautiful culture as well as many different ideologies. I have learned so much about the Japanese culture and have learned to appreciate the art of Aikido so much more. 

Several people I know think that learning a martial art will only make you want to fight more, just because you think you can take on the world. This to me sounds like any typical teenager. In actuality, I believe that martial arts do the exact opposite. I think that learning an art of fighting, at least for me, has made me realize that solving conflicts without violence is much more self rewarding. Solving issues without violence makes one feel like a bigger person, and gives one a feeling of self accomplishment, because it takes self control for someone to just turn the other cheek.

The great Bruce Lee taught Jeet Kune Do, an art that he said was fighting without fighting. I have come to believe that many different martial arts are the same way. Martial arts are not supposed to be learned just so you can go out looking for fights or for becoming so arrogant that you think you will never lose a fight. Martial arts should only be used in defending one’s self. As Bruce Lee once said, “showing off is a fool’s idea of glory.”  I believe that it is relevant to many of the more cocky martial arts students.

When learning a martial art I believe it is also necessary to learn the philosophy and ideology of the great thinkers from the culture. In my training I have found that the quotes and thoughts of Mr. Bruce Lee and O’Sensei to be very helpful. Without knowing the internal ideas and beliefs of a certain martial art you can never master it. Bruce Lee also had a quote that I believe is relevant: “I hope Martial Artists are more interested in the roots of martial arts and not the decorative branches, flowers and leaves.” This quote changes everything I saw martial arts to be. I always thought that the flashy martial arts were the most interesting and efficient. When I read this quote for the first time I saw Lee’s true genius and realized the true dedication it takes to master a martial art.

Many martial arts teach direct forms of fighting and emphasize the necessity of being stronger than your opponent. Whereas in Aikido we are taught to use the other persons strength and energy against them, thereby putting less strain on ourselves. Again I look at a quote from Lee as he tells a student to be like water, “Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless-like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put water in a tea pot, it becomes a teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”  This quote to me has been very influential to me in regards to my training.

All the things I have learned and all my enlightenment I credit to my teachers and Sensei. So thank you Sensei Dee Seabolt, Jerry Akel, John Miller, as well as my fellow students for helping me, Ryan, Maggie, Kevin, as well as my brother PJ. So thank you all for everything you have done.

“Failure is the key to success; Each mistake teaches us something.” O-Sensei

This is my favorite quote from O-Sensei for a variety of reasons.  One of the main reasons is that it embodies my personal philosophy.  This is not just limited to Aikido, but to life in general.  In life, as with Aikido, failure is inevitable.  Look back on your own life.  How long did it take you to learn to walk, to speak, or to learn your profession?   Can anyone honestly say that they accomplished these tasks the first time?  I thought not.  The reality is that failure is unavoidable, and is sure to be your truest companion through life.

Most people are disappointed by failure because they expect perfection.  This is faulty reasoning when going to an Aikido class, though.  Perfection is a sign of mastery, and if one can truly master a thing (be it Aikido or anything else) there is nothing left to learn.  The impressive thing about Aikido is that it does not have a glass ceiling.  There is no upper limit.  Even O-Sensei trained when he was recognized as the master of his art.  Even he, at his highest level of skill, saw fit to improve upon what he had built, presumably because he was not satisfied on some level.  We should expect failure, because perfection is impossible.

Since we cannot avoid failure, we should embrace it fully, in Aikido and in life.  Personally, I find it to be the best teacher: No organization can compare to the school of hard knocks.  For me, the hard things are best remembered, while that which is easily earned is just as easily forgotten.  Life is hard, Aikido is hard, so you should expect to fail.  It makes life more interesting!