Emotions in Motion
Seishiro Endo Sensei is the one single teacher who puts tremendous effort in developing students' awareness about their emotional state and in coaching them to manage it. His teaching is significant and is very helpful in elevating one's spiritual development.
Being a beneficiary of Endo Sensei's approach, one evening, I decided to have people focused on taking inventory of their feelings at different times during Aikido practice.
At first, they seemed perplexed by my request and were not sure what to do with it. I sent them reminders periodically during class. It did not take long for the exercise to take effect.
Having strong emotions displayed on the Aikido mat is nothing new: Some people blush. Some people get so wound up that their faces become all puffy and red. Some people let out nervous laughs. Some get so emotional that they tear up or even cry.
In addition, when people become overly task-oriented, no matter how good-natured they are, they still can get angry and assign blame to their partners for their own failure to perform a technique. That negative emotion is shared with their partner in no time.
Periodically, I repeated the same rhetorical question: "How are you feeling inside?" There was just absolute silence and a heavy feeling in the air.
To make sure she is on the right track, student X likes to constantly ask "Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing it correctly?" She is a very self-driven person and is very eager to do well. Yet, she thinks too much and too hard about everything. When things don't go as she wishes, she kicks herself hard. Her behavioral pattern gets her emotions to boil over very easily. She had a really difficult time in class this evening.
After class, I had a conversation with X.
"I am used to thinking through something before I do it so that I am sure that I am doing it right. I have to know everything before I do it," she said.
"But life is not like that. You cannot put life on hold before you make all the decisions because life has no pause button. It waits for no one. Often times, you ask me questions which I have no answer to. The only way we know is for time to tell. If you insist to wait till you have an answer before you act, it will be eternity." I know she does not like hearing this, but it is the truth.
"But I have to understand it before I learn something. That's what I am used to and always do. I can't do what you ask me to do." X insisted.
"I do not think it is true. If it is really the case, you should still be lying on your back sucking on your toes." I said.
She laughed.
Then I amended, "Actually, what I said was incorrect. You should not be sucking your toes on your back because you could not possibly have even learnt how to suckle. If you were true to the principle you said, you should have starved to death already. We would not be here talking!"
She laughed again. She did not seem to pick up the fact that I was being serious, though a bit sarcastic.
"Stop being so willful and try to be more mindful. Make yourself a piece of clean, pure clay and allow the demo to make an impression on you."
I gave her the best advice I have to offer, but will she listen?
Mindfulness is easier said than done. It is very much what Aikido is about.
Many times, however, when I approach students to make corrections, I ask them, "I show these movements during demo. Are you doing what I did? Why not? What made you do what you do instead?" Their responses tend to be: "I don't know!" or "Am I doing that?" or "Didn't I do that?"
Sometimes people try to assert that they were very focused. I chuckle and ask them, "Hmm, so focused that you have no idea what you are doing?"
Student Y tends to get so sucked into the physical interaction that his head sticks out with his jaw dropped. I have to remind him often that being focused is good; being consumed is not.
The day after, I received a text from Y: "I saw myself reflected last night in student X, who was my partner at practice. I saw what my frustration looks like when I hold on to it."
Aikido is like a house of mirrors, with the practitioners being mirrors for each other. Maybe my efforts are not wasted. There is hope, after all.
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