Aikido and the Attacks of Circumstance

On my most difficult days this picture best represents me, in terms of how I aim to meet it. How the utter challenge of those days summons in me this image, this spirit of resilience, the spirit of harmony. This is the picture of Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of aikido, a Japanese martial art created around 1940. I researched his life extensively when I first got into aikido in 2006. I came to understand that the creation of this art didn't come out of thin air, but through real hardships and devotion to the higher path through it all. The name aikido can be translated as the way to harmonize with the energy of the universe. Harmony is one of my favorite words, and harmonic resonance one of the most powerful guiding principles of the universe. It is the subtle silent rustling of the wind, until the amplitude grows to cause the infamous collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940. We can choose what we want to resonate with, and how we will then affect others with the setting of our internal dialed in frequency.

Aikido can be applied to all aspects of my life, especially my worst days. As O'sensei, the founder, said, “before the bomb the battlefield was the warrior's way of life, but after, their way of life became the battlefield”. It is much easier to focus on harmonizing with the rhythms of the universe when it is a sunny day in the park; but it takes a muddy swamp to grow a lotus flower, immense pressure to make a diamond, and rain to get a rainbow. My convictions are put to the test when my safety is threatened by an attacker; triggering the physiology of fear with an accelerating pulse, contraction of muscle tone, and sweat instantly beading up on my forehead. How do I respond? Do I heed the call of my instinctive animal nature to fight back, rebel and attack the attacker, or flee the scene to make a great escape?

My worst days can be compared to an attacker scenario, with the intensity of symptoms, shame, and sense of isolation. A night this spring was one of the worst, when my alarm to call for help in my bed malfunctioned, leaving me with no options to do anything externally. The feeling that I’m alone in the empty vacuum of space to deal with this attacker, collapses in on me. There's no help line in the moment of truth. I must draw what resources I can from within myself. I had a foot pain so intense it was making my leg twitch. I wear boots at night to counter my calf’s stiffness and hold my ankles in a neutral position. My foot and the boot had rolled off to one side putting pressure on the side of my foot. I couldn't move because of my condition and there was no way to ask someone to reposition me without the alarm. All I could do was react internally, and that was the brilliance of Jeff Haller's aikido dojo’s name, Inside Moves. The attacker was at me with full sensational force.

I'm still working on strengthening my harmony with my inner source. That night part of me was in panic, even though I was relatively calm, spending a lot of the time in meditation and prayer. I was able to adapt to the fluid that had collected in my lungs. It was not obstructing my breathing too much. It put out a rumbling gargle with each exhale forced through the fluid. If it got worse and really started to obstruct my airways, I knew it would set off the alarm on my ventilator and wake my mother up. I was almost hoping that would happen, although not to be masochistic, but at that point all options are on the table. I was willing to trade a brief air hunger for a seemingly endless battle with my attacker.

 Any effective attack brings about an element of shame; stimulating thoughts like why me, or what did I do to deserve this. My nighttime attacker brought it in full force. I usually urinate once or twice a night, and that night was no different. Since I had no way of getting help, I could only hold back the flood gates for so long, eventually, nature took its course. There is not much more humbling as a forty-year-old man then to have to lay in my own urine. As Bob Marley sang, “once a man, twice a child”, but usually that second return to childhood comes much later. So the threat of shame was fully present as well that night.

The attacker brought a thorough combination move to my practice, but with O'sensei's image nearby, I remember his teachings that every attack has an opening, meaning that by attacking there is always a weak spot, an angle of imbalance, or vulnerability of the attacker. That is why aikido is the path of invincibility because the one who does not fight can never be defeated. Aikido doesn't have any attacks, and therefore can always be in harmony with the powers of the universe. Similarly, O’sensei teaches me to harmonize with my worst days; not to resist them, not to fight them, not to run away from them. Just as every attack has an opening, so too does every worst day have a lesson, an opportunity for growth.

Although aikido never attacks, it does teach us to always lead. We are guiding the attacker into the spiderweb of our benevolence, to dilute the violence in the ocean of our compassion, diffusing the attack by utilizing its opening to guide us back into harmony. Mirroring this example, I practice aikido by guiding my worst days into the context of my life's classroom for the evolution of my soul. I can choose to raise above my despair, fear response, shame, and sense of isolation and separation; to harmonize with my inner source, the creative power of the stars’ formation. When I practice holding those roots of my being, I’m not consumed by the attacks of circumstance, which allows me to uncover in my reactions where fear still has a grip on my body and mind. They are then brought into the light of consciousness, where they melt layer upon layer, one worst day at a time, until the full power of the sun has returned to the dawn of my rebirth.