An Aiki Moment

Part Two - Generating heroes in an ambiguous modernity

If we want to survive the next decade or so, our little planet is going to have to come up with workable solutions to a variety of difficulties - economic, environmental, political, ethnic, technological, religious, etc. If we want to survive, we must quickly figure out how to unkindle the fires alight under the tinder of Islamic militancy, how to balance the legitimate needs of industry with the sustainable limits to environmental resources, how to prevent the spread of fissionable materials and technologies, and how to overcome the enormous economic influence of arms merchants, drug smugglers, and pharmaceutical companies. These solutions, whatever they are, will not come from the barrel of a gun or the blade of a flashing sword; the problems we as a planet face at this point in the new millennium are simply not the type that can be cured by violence. We have many good soldiers doing what soldiers do around the world, but in the grand scheme of things our problems will not be solved by soldiers but by statesman. 

All the problems we face are rooted in, and nourished by, conflict. Aikido teaches us that the most effective approach to conflict resolution is not to "become stronger than one's opponent" because the only real opponent is the conflict itself. Instead, one must act as the catalyst by which the conflict itself is eliminated. Aikido training can help us to become such a catalyst, both on and off the mat.

25 years ago when I graduated from college, I saw many of my friends going off to become doctors, environmental lawyers, and social workers, but even though they may have been propelled by a tide of a hundred noble sentiments, I nevertheless saw my friends as engaged in an attack on the symptoms of society's discontents, rather than on the cause. To invoke Thoreau, I saw that "There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root," (Walden, Economy) and I believe Aikido training can help us become such a one as he discussed.

If "conflict" is the true phylum name of whatever genus or species of problem we may encounter, then "solving the world's problems" becomes a matter of resolving the conflicts that engender the problems, rather than myopically focusing on the problems themselves. Were Heracles to have come up from behind and killed the body of the Hydra instead of frantically attacking all of its heads from the front, he might have had an easier time of it.

Our age is, however, more complex than the one that the Greek hero had to grapple with. Vanquishing our enemy with mighty sword strokes and some burning embers is no longer an option. Today the Hydra is a protected species, swords require a permit, and to burn embers one must first submit an environmental impact statement. The mythic description of the titanic contest is also out-dated. Closer examination of the field of battle reveals that it is no longer home to two elemental opposing forces.

We are, as Nietzsche put it, beyond Good and Evil. The Greeks saw life's challenges as pairings of monsters and heroes. On our field of battle, however, there is only the Hydra: venomous, wounded, dangerous, and alone. Just as Pogo discovered his enemy, we must understand that the great beast is us. There we are, with our many heads quarrelling in an otherwise unthreatening expanse. There is no opponent against whom we must, or even can, wage war; rather it is these heads, connected to our common frame, that must learn to wage peace. There is no "enemy" other than conflict, but since there is conflict within our collective breast, there is still a battle to be won. In that battle, for there to be "victory," we must somehow learn to tame ourselves.

Thus the challenge to the contemporary would-be hero is the ambiguity of modernity - we live in a world without dragons to slay and damsels to rescue from distress. Being a knight in shining armor was a lot easier when the bad guys wore black and the “good” thing to do was stick your sword though them a few times. The ultimate challenge, however, of conquering our own demons is still available to us would-be heroes centuries after dragon slaying became unfashionable. Nevertheless, living an enlightened life, as challenging as that may be, seems like it might not be enough when so much of our world is going to hell - if that enlightened life is played out quietly off the main stage of the world’s events.

Part Three - What's all this got to do with kids studying Aikido?

The world seems to be in desperate need of the kind of statesmanship that could have figured out by now what to do about terrorism, AIDS, global warming, and poverty. Maybe I missed something on the evening news, but our leaders, even the few inspiring ones, do not seem to have accomplished everything we need them to.

My contention is that it is up to those of us who have already found the aikido path to either make the headlines ourselves, or create from amongst our children and students the leaders who will. O'Sensei famously claimed that Aikido was a way to heal the world. While this seems an extravagant claim, who amongst us has devised a better way? There are, in this 41st year since the founder's passing, a million or more of us scattered around the planet, a group which constitutes a veritable army of harmonious change - if we do not put this healing into practice, who will? If our art is unable to resolve the conflicts that plague us, what art can? If we do not believe that training children in Aikido improves their chances of waging peace as adults, why do we teach this to kids? If we do not keep our expectations high and believe our students must be made ready to take on the world's great challenges, how can they be prepared to do so? 

Margaret Mead once wrote: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." While there is nothing wrong with using aikido to teach kids to be a bit more coordinated and a bit more confident, it is not enough; we must, as teachers of children, also wield aikido to create the kind of thoughtful, committed citizens that can manifest the art's potential for leadership and healing.

The practice of war, which mankind seems so reluctant or unable to give up, is good at drawing out the heroes from our midst. It is bad, however, on so many other levels that the price of finding those heroes never seems worth paying. Aikido training, however, has the potential to be groomed into the moral equivalent of war - for if it is war that awakens the great heroes amongst us - it will be the moral equivalent of war that will, without any violence and chaos required, awaken the great statesmen.