| Q&A
with Ellis Amdur
Q: In your book, Dueling With O'sensei: Grappling with the
Myth of the Warrior Sage, you took a hard look at what can go
wrong in martial arts training. How might one recognize and avoid
bad training environments?
Ellis Amdur: There should be absolutely no abrogation
of any legal or human right in a dojo environment, and a teacher
who deliberately injures a student is committing an assault,
or worse, battery. That's a crime, plain and simple.
A fellow
martial arts practitioner who deliberately tries to "disable"
you is also committing a crime, plain and simple.
A teacher
who wants to sleep with your wife, your husband or your kid, is, at
best, a sleazy human being. And any "reframe" that this
is some kind of teaching is bull.
How does
one know if an environment is abusive?
I am aware
that this can be tough, particularly in a rugged training environment.
Your teacher thumps you -- was it abuse or a caution about an opening?
But:
a. Read
The Gift of Fear, by Gavin De Becker -- if something feels wrong,
something is wrong
b. Ask
yourself what it is you set out to learn -- and how does a broken arm
or a broken marriage move you forward on that path? How does coerced
sex lead to more integrity? (This one's important, because one might
see it as an "exchange" to get more knowledge on the mat from
the teacher.) The issue should not, should never be, acquisition of
power alone; it is the attainment of personal integrity. A person who
trades off a sense of pride, self-worth or dignity for the possibility
of a better sword cut, has gained absolutely nothing.
c. Don't
deify the teacher or the art -- what you think is so exclusively special
is in fact all over the place. There are lots of venues where one can
learn great martial arts. Maybe not the particular system or ryu you
started out with, but at least one where you won't go to class nauseous
with adrenaline sickness, shaking with fear, or dealing with an aftermath
of rage.
d. Use
common sense, ordinary activities as your touchstone. Music class. Gym
class. Ordinary learning of any kind. If you don't need to perform sexual
acts to learn to play Bach or volleyball, why should you in karate or
aikido? If it's offensive when a neighbor comes on to your spouse in
a party, why not in a dojo? If you are being offered a relationship
with someone who maintains a hierarchical distance based on power, status,
control or the possession of knowledge that will only be yours if you
roll over, and you are drawn to it, you are always mistaken,
because that's a form of mercantile exchange, otherwise known as prostituting
yourself -- hence, a compromise of integrity. Ask yourself why you'd
choose a loss of dignity or integrity for anything.
e. Limited
scope -- with the exception of those in a true military environment
(where one is trying to take civilized human beings and impart the ability
to kill on order as part of a group), there is no need for any sort
of personality breakdown in training. Challenge to preconceptions and
limitations? Yes. Wiping the slate clean? No.
What I'm
coming to more and more is that martial arts are nothing special. It
is specialized learning that can enrich one's life. A hobby, in other
words. Just as one should not be violated collecting stamps, the same
applies to a dojo. Injuries can happen, sure. But if I'm learning to
ski, and my instructor tries to deliberately send me on a slope beyond
my abilities, that's criminal. If he or she is more concerned about
getting laid than teaching me what I pay him or her for, that person
is a gutter human being.
Q: The advice to trust one's fear, in the context of considering
how one might recognize and escape an abusive training environment,
seems bittersweet. Isn't it fair to say that seeking confidence
in, or even the capacity for, self-directed action brings many
to the dojo?
And
I wonder if martial arts are, as you find your opinion settling
near, just another hobby. Granted, most folks don't seem to lose
themselves in the magic and mystery of third-period gym. But then
again, the world of sports certainly doesn't lack exploitive and
abusive behavior. But the thing that keeps bugging me, the difference
that nags, is participant expectation. Do people come to Aikido
primed and prepared, by their own motivations, for exploitation?
Do
folks study Bach to self-actualize? Is stamp collecting a spiritual
pursuit? The way of the snow ski, path or destination? Probably
not. But in a few cases, probably, yes. And I'd expect those few
to face the same pitfalls tripping, sometimes swallowing, those
in love with loving Aikido.
Ellis Amdur: Most spiritual traditions are, in
some manner, escapist, in that fear is regarded as a noxious illusion
to be expunged by equanimity. In my unenlightened opinion, we
were born to be human beings, and therefore, nothing human should
be erased from us. Anything human carries knowledge/information.
It is how we act on that knowledge. Therefore, fear, as horrid
as it can feel, is a teacher. (Old Spanish proverb: The only difference
between a brave man and a coward is what direction they are running).
So: hopefully, through training, one masters debilitating fear;
hopefully, through training, one uses fear as a teacher
My use
of the word, "hobby," is not patronizing or belittling. It
is an attempt to reduce things to a proper proportion. There are survival-based
activities (farming) as opposed to enriching activities (gardening).
When we have accomplished survival, we have the luxury to flourish and
enrich ourselves as humans. I bridle at the pretentiousness that many
(myself among them, in the past) have displayed, blaring about a martial
"way." Inflation, deification, mystification -- all of these
are the fertile ground where abuse and illusion grow best.
Can benign
expectations lead one into danger? Absolutely! Aikido -- peace, love,
unity, musubi, along with samurai mystique -- all of these draw people
with particular hopes, fears and dreams... and, yes, make them particularly
vulnerable to exploitation
Q: What else do you see in those attracted to Aikido?
Ellis Amdur: Aikido seems to draw a lot of people
who are looking to see "through" violence to something
else. Yes, there are lots of people who are genuine fighters who
no longer want to be, there are others who want to pretend to
be fighters and use aikido as a place to play out fantasies, there
are many bliss-ninnies and aiki-bunnies, and thousands of ordinary
human beings who just love the art -- any conceivable permutation
of human character -- but at core, I believe there is something
about the movements of aikido, the way the reciprocal practice
is structured with its exchange between uke and nage, which strikes
many people deeply in a mysterious way. It is such a paradox!
Technically, aikido is quite limited -- and this is deliberate
-- which forces people into a template of movement. This, by definition,
makes it an art, as the skill is created within a frame. There
is also a psychological challenge in that one is working for conflict
resolution while practicing throwing people down, or locking them
in painful configurations.
I believe
that aikido offers a lot of people the chance at experiencing something
clean and pure -- a practice of relationship that holds all
the opposites -- insecurity/confidence, aggression/peace, taking/giving,
and metaphorically, at least, cuts a line right through the oppositions.
I'm not saying that people always, or even most of the time, can do
this. But I think of Yasunori Kuwamori or Shirata Rinjiro, and see that
aikido can be a vehicle to this end. Not enlightenment. Simply a clean
line through life.
__________________
Ellis Amdur
http://www.ellisamdur.com
Books by
Ellis Amdur:
Dueling With
O'sensei: Grappling with the Myth of the Warrior Sage
Old School: Essays
of Japanese Martial Traditions
|
