Martial Nonviolence - MNv® [http://martialnonviolence.com] is a bodymind conflict facilitation training for teaching Healing Friction to children and adults individually and in groups. It begins with traditional aikido movement, adds professional theater improvisation techniques, and culminates in an ongoing practice of group facilitation which generates sustainable communities.
Most responses to the pain of conflict and the desire for peace lean in one of two directions, either toward books or toward business. Those wishing the world to be a more peaceful place will engage most frequently in academic or meditative study, or they will attempt to introduce currency, goods, pharmaceuticals, and work in places suffering from poverty, hunger, illness, and warfare both literal and metaphorical. In principle, this is perfectly reasonable.
At least one additional requirement, however, is missing from efforts to create a lasting peace in regions where conflict seems to prevail, from bedrooms and boardrooms to literal battlefields. The way contemporary human beings conflict is itself the dilemma, so efforts at change manifest the same body habits, psychological patterns, and unfortunate consequences that lead to breakdowns of relations in the first place. The missing piece is training: repeated practice of proven techniques geared specifically for working through conflict so that peace is the result. Martial Nonviolence fills this need.
Aikido is called the "art of peace" because its practice allows one to respond to physical violence without damaging attackers in the process. Being able to harm those who wish to harm you, and insisting on a different outcome that includes their well-being transforms the nature of conflict itself rather than simplistically defeating an attacker.
This physical practice has philosophical and ethical implications which, when made an explicit expectation, create the habits of Martial Nonviolence, which values difference and insists that conflicts get the kind of attention that results in sustainable solutions which acknowledge the shadows inherent in any system. MNv is a self-sustaining process art and peace practice through which individuals, groups, and organizations of any size may develop the habit of responding creatively to any kind of conflict without becoming violent. This frequent, disciplined, working well through conflict is the major difference between groups which say they value peace and those which insist on peace, beginning with their own behavior. When nonviolence is practiced explicitly, through exercises based on proven experience and geared for all levels of expertise, in a community gathered with time set aside for the purpose, then peace is being practiced.
Brandon WilliamsCraig Ph.D. is a 4th degree blackbelt aikido instructor, founded and is Chief Instructor at Free Aiki Dojo in Downtown Berkeley, and is Chief Instructor of Golden Bears Aikido at UC Berkeley. He originated Martial Nonviolence as a method of practicing peace and offers weekly classes not only in Downtown Berkeley and on the Cal campus but at Aikido of Berkeley (Kayla Feder Sensei, 6th dan, Dojo Cho) and at The Renaissance School, a highly regarded Montessori school in Oakland, California.
