Martial Arts Daughter

It is especially unladylike, my mother believed, for girls to learn martial arts and "wave their hands and feet about." I've always had an interest in martial arts, and I guess growing up watching Hong Kong kung-fu sagas with bad-ass, sword-wielding heroines had a little something to do with fueling my passion. When I expressed my desire to my traditional mother--who still manages to put a three-course meal on the table every night for family dinners--she didn't allow me to get into martial arts. In my early teens, I'd watch my two older male cousins go off to their paid karate lessons and pine away at their freedom.

When I got to college, I wormed my way into two rather unconventional things: 1.) Being an English major, and 2.) Being an aikidoka. My parents had high hopes that I'd select a more lucrative profession . . . they had given me choices of the more acceptable study paths: to become an engineer, doctor, lawyer, or, if I managed to fail at all of the above--at least a real-estate agent. And if I were so incompetent as to give up all that, I had the choice of marrying either an engineer, doctor, lawyer, or--if I must--a real-estate agent. After all, my older female cousins all became or married men in those fields. A husband like that would protect me financially, keep me comfortable. My parents had no idea what I'd do with an English degree besides teach, and I ended up not even getting that right.

Getting into aikido was an equally amusing experience. I showed my mother my Schedule of Classes booklet, pointing out the necessary electives for graduation credit. "Mom, I need these P.E. units to graduate, and this aikido class is the only thing that'll fit into my tight schedule--you do want me to get a college degree, don't you?" I thought I'd try out different martial arts one by one until I found what I liked and wanted to stick with, but when I was handed my gi and went through the first few aikido classes, I was in love.

When my youngest brother developed an interest in taking up martial arts and I showed him a few techniques I learned, my mother shook her head at my dad and said, "That's it, we have three boys instead of two sons and a daughter." She gave me the stink-eye when I accidentally broke things: an automatic umbrella, a French Press's glass carafe, a few of her porcelain rice bowls that I swear had chips leading to a weak fissure in the first place; she'd half-jokingly blame my "martial arts hands."

I took the offered aikido classes on repeat for two-and-a-half years, long after I had fulfilled all my necessary P.E. credits. I put my training on hold for a while as life took me on its often unpredictable path. And I've just picked it up again this year, restarting the journey.

My mother still doesn't get why I stay out in the evenings past family dinnertime to wrestle with sweaty people and wave around wooden sticks and swords, but she's more tolerant now. She's tolerant, but she doesn't completely understand. Just the other week, glancing at me taking off my blue belt after class, she asked, "So when are you going to be done with aikido?" I looked at her like she was speaking Latin. She didn't ask as if she was hinting that I should stop--she was genuinely curious as to how much longer it can go on (like a exercise class that ends every semester, or a college degree that you'd get after x amount of years). I don't know how to explain to her these things I feel inside, about this other culture that I grew up in, and which she still feels alienated from. That while I do eventually want to get married, I also covet the ability to protect myself, both physically and financially. That if I have a daughter, I'd want to raise her to be strong, too, in mind and spirit, as well as body. That the idea of stopping my training again is like giving up the ability to dream, the desire to fly. And that even at Black Belt, when down the road I am ready to test for my Shodan, my "first step"--it does not end but would have just barely begun.

Dancing

Arms up and out in an effort to maintain the extension in my uke's body, my eyes followed Sensei's foot as he planted it firmly in a spot off to my left and in front of me. "Now, put your right foot where mine is," he said, showing me the footwork of shihonage. It seemed a long way to step, but I discovered that it was necessary to continue extending my partner and effectively drop him. "In aikido, we look for openings," Sensei said, showing me the opening I was supposed to create for myself under uke's arms before stepping through. Even though I still struggle with the techniques, these important details have become easier for me to spot; I am becoming more aware of footwork, openings, and connections, of extensions and of torquing for tightness, when to hang on and when to let go.

I was struggling with the footwork of how to "chase" my opponent in kickboxing. It seemed counter-intuitive after my aikido training to slide back and off to the side with my back foot, maintaining the tight-circle connection, when I've been training myself to step with the forward side. In the only dance that he'd do with me, my boyfriend (who's also my training coach) came up behind me, glued his limbs and body to mine, and guided me into the correct steps. Slide-turn-jab; slide-turn-jab--we went in circles around the living room, and I tried to commit the movements of this still-unfamiliar art into my muscle memory.

There are those popular shows on television now: "Dancing With the Stars" and "So You Think You Can Dance" to name a couple. Tons of movies: Take the Lead and Save the Last Dance, stemming from an older generation of Footloose and Dirty Dancing. All good entertainment, and yes, something I wish I could do. But I dance, too--in a different way. Putting one foot in front of the other, memorizing where each goes for various techniques, I study the movements of my body to a different beat, in tune with the music of my heart.

Hiring

During line-up to conclude class, Sensei brought up something I asked him a while back. Referring to one of his favorite phrases, he looked at me with a smile and inquired, "Are you practicing the aikido that cannot be seen?"

Caught in a deer-in-headlights moment, I answered with a timid, "Umm--maybe...?"

"Still not sure, huh?" he asked, laughing.

"Still figuring it out, Sensei," I replied.

He never directly told me what he meant by "the aikido that cannot be seen," and while I spent at least a good half hour and two blog entries musing about its meaning, I couldn't give him a straight answer, guarded by the voice in the back of my head that nags, "What if I'm wrong?"

One thing I'm pretty sure it alludes to is how applicable aikido is in my everyday life. For the past three months, I've been trying to hire an additional person for my meager department of two. It's been quite a experience of seemingly endless resume-browsing, phone-screening, and on-site interviewing (x2); trying to achieve committee consensus on one candidate from a stock pile of nearly 200 resumes has been no easy feat. This is especially a challenge as I'm new to the hiring/managerial responsibilities, hoping to grow in my role.

It's true aikido teaches you combat skills, but it also teaches you the ways to conflict resolution. Today, after a second interview with a candidate I'm hoping to hire, I faced my boss as he presented me with his opinions of the candidate's strengths and weaknesses. I am tired of trying to hire, ready to start training a new team member. I assessed the openings in my boss's arguments, decided to blend with him, riding that common wave created by our merging energies, and to go for the approach that took the least amount of effort to yield the desired results. I tried not to let my insecurities show despite being new at this, having less hiring experience than he did. I made my point and stood firm; I didn't let my will power waver. And in the end, he yielded, perhaps detecting in my iron resolve my ability to handle the situation and embrace my responsibilities. Even if it turns out I may be wrong about certain things, I'd have the passion and desire to correct my mistakes in the long run. We all start somewhere, and by seeking perfection to begin with, we may lose the chance at a good candidate who projects enthusiasm and is eager to learn. I am ready to face him, ready to say, "Onegai-shimasu," let the training begin.

"Are you practicing the aikido that cannot be seen?" The next time Sensei asks, I will have a concrete example to look back upon. Then I can answer, "Hai, Sensei. At least I try to, every single day."

San Shou

The way of the "free hand" is full-contact and consists of kicks, punches, grappling, and throws. Fast, furious, and direct, this form of kickboxing aims to take down an opponent in the least amount of time. Compared to aikido, these arts seem like polar opposites. Flow and harmony are replaced with quick-paced, in-your-face action; soft rolls and sit falls are replaced with the jarring impact of a direct take-down; the respectful ma-ai (distance) between training partners gets closed up, the space between two bodies nonexistent during instances of kneeing and ground-grappling. The terminology of basic martial concepts change--instead of "training partner," the person facing you is your "opponent"; where one art stresses the absence of competition, the other is directly competitive.

I kick-box not to nullify my aikido training, but to enhance it. I get to know the feeling of five long, long minutes of pushing forward with punches, kicks, and blocks; not backing down, closing up the distance, not forgetting to shield my face with my 12-ounce gloves that become heavier and heavier as the minutes drag on to 10, 15, 20. Aikido techniques open up like a blooming flower, embracing the attack, redirecting its force to work to your advantage. Kickboxing tightens up like a turtle in its shell, staying focused, hard, protected. My defensive and centered hanmi stance becomes a squared offensive stance, staying alive on the balls of my feet, inching up to strike the kicking pads.

Jab-jab, cross, hook, knee-knee, roundhouse. The pattern becomes a rhythm in my head, orchestrating the movements of my body as I push forward, exhaling in quick puffs with each strike. The impact on my gloved hands and bare shins jolts my body to the the core, seems to send my brain smashing against its protective skull. Endurance. Focus. Precision. If I let my guard down, allow gravity to lull my aching arms a fraction below where they should be near my face, I get a hook with the kicking pads to the side of my head. "Don't be lazy; no cheating." Sweat pours down my back, running into my eyes, and with my hands gloved, I can't wipe it off. I blink away the sting and keep going, me against the clock for the ultimate test of my will power.

Afterwards, I slip out of my gloves and catch my breath. My thumbs are shaking, and I couldn't even grip the cap of the water bottle well enough to twist it open. My shins are bruised, my knees are red, and my triceps come alive, protesting this rude awakening from their comfortable dormancy. Is it so different, this wonderful feeling of accomplishment after a hard training session? Is it so foreign, that trickle of ki burning from my center, fueling my aching body with a divine will to push on? I am both defensive and offensive, soft and hard, tranquil and turbulent, water and steel.

Ki

Ki. Chi. Life force. And elusive concept, it is sometimes given the analogy, "what makes up the red parts in your palm." In martial arts practice, we learn to harness this energy in our movements, direct it outwards to back our attacks and throws with vitality. It is the essence of us, the iron core of our spirits, the well from which we draw strength when our endurance runs low, feeding us with the will to continue when we feel we've got nothing left to give. It makes up our "ki-ai's,"--the battle cries that regulate our breathing and are the extensions of our strikes. Martial arts make us aware of our ki and how we can use it; we learn to hone it like an essential tool, shaping it as, over the years, we also whet our spirit and character.

The first time I saw weapons being demonstrated at my dojo, I was blown away. The class was sitting in line-up, and Sensei had out his bokken (wooden sword). One minute he stood in front of the class with a senior student, lecturing on how the paired practice should be performed. "Like this," he said, and then he launched into quick, precise moves with loud ki-ai's to enhance his thrusts. Clack-clack! The impact of wood on wood rang through the air, harmonizing with Sensei's battle cries like percussion to a thunder song, and in three moves, the student helping to demo was against the wall, forced backwards by the onslaught, barely timing it correctly to parry the blows. My jaw dropped open; riveted to my seat, I forgot to breathe. I had never worked with a weapon before. My Sensei is slight in frame, not much taller than me, and almost appears wizened with age. But the way he handled that wooden sword, with dexterity and utmost precision in his attacks, made me crave that skill and long to learn.

This morning, almost seven months later, I face my training partner with my jo, a wooden stick slightly shorter and narrower than a bo staff. Concentrated, aware of his slightest movements of attack before I initiate my own defense, I seek to find harmony in our paired practice. I am more aware of lines--the center line connecting us, how we step off to the left to parry, meet down at the center again to strike, and step off to the right to set up another attack. I learn how foot and hip movements are used to exert maximum force with minimum effort. And our wooden weapons continue to sing their song through the sun-lit dojo.

Going home this morning, I begin to feel it--the callouses starting to form on my soft hands where I was gripping the weapon tight to put power behind each thrust. I bring my palms in front of my face and see the redness pool in a concentrated spot underneath the white of my flesh. Warmed from practice, strengthened by executing and taking wrist grabs, there is now more red than white swirling on the surface of my hands. I take the satisfaction of this feeling home with me, seeking still to find my ki, but knowing that I am that much closer.

"The Aikido that Cannot be Seen"

One of my Senseis has a favorite saying that he sometimes uses to conclude class: "Practice the aikido that cannot be seen." After the first few times I heard him say it, I pondered over the meaning, wondering what philosophical lesson I was supposed to get from it. There is a spiritual aspect to aikido, deeply rooted in religious lessons and aphorisms from where the founder, Morehei Ueshiba, gleaned inspiration for the martial art.

One night, I approached my Sensei and asked what he meant by "the aikido that cannot be seen." Instead of giving me a straight answer, he thought for a moment, and then he launched into a story about being in a restaurant when the waitress set down a cup of cream that started hydroplaning across the table's surface, only to be caught by my Sensei before it skidded off the edge. The waitress, perplexed at the speed of which everything happened, asked my Sensei how he caught it so fast, to which he responded, "I was waiting for it."

Sensei saw my still-quizzical expression, so he told another story of when he took the longer path to where he needed to go by walking around some band members practicing instead of cutting directly through them, "to avoid conflict," he added. I was sitting there, thinking about how I had accidentally punched a bee smack across the body that afternoon at lunch because it had caught me by surprise, suddenly buzzing loudly near my ear before I had a chance to react otherwise. I wondered if that counted as "the aikido that cannot be seen."

Driving home after practice, I thought more about Sensei's saying. Perhaps I had trouble understanding it, as he had trouble articulating it, because it has more than one meaning and was intended to teach multiple lessons. Aikido is not waiting for things to happen, but anticipating what is to come and blending with it, flowing with it. Aikido is conflict-resolution before a conflict even takes place. Aikido takes understanding, produces harmony, makes you one with your surroundings. Aikido is a privilege to practice. It is a traditional art that embraces the ancient ways, a code of ethics, a warrior's creed; it nestles in between the physical contact between training partners and everyone's individual interpretations of its spiritual lessons. At once constant and ethereal, it cannot be seen, but makes you a believer based on how it can make you feel.

4th Kyu

It used to be fun, because it used to be short. A few techniques demonstrated in both front and rear styles, some ukemi skills to show I can take a fall or go into a roll, some memorized vocabulary to make sure I knew the names of certain attacks. But on my 4th-kyu test, after which I would lose the white from my belt, I felt for the first time a sense of apprehension. It's not the usual anxiety, the normal butterflies-in-stomach release of adrenaline before a test; it's the fear of miscalculation, the paranoia that I'd forget how to perform a certain technique, the doubt in my own endurance.

After the first few techniques had been called out for me to demonstrate, I moved on to the third. Kihon waza: step in to stop the technique before the partner's strike is completed. Ki no nagare: "flowing technique" where the partner's striking momentum is purposefully drawn out, to be used to your advantage as you turn it into your own attack. Ki no nagare has always come more natural to me, and my body defaults to it instinctively. So when Sensei called kihon waza, I took a second to recall the hand and foot movements. When I stepped right into what I was supposed to do, I was so thrilled over getting it right that I forgot what I needed to do for the meat of the technique: shihonage. I froze, my mind coated with panic. I was hyperventilating, not breathing enough, not supplying my desperate body with much-needed oxygen. And then my brain just shut itself off, and my body took over to do the rest. There were a few rough spots during the rest of my test, but nothing quite as dramatic as that. And when it was over and the other students had their chance at their own tests, I found a new blue belt waiting for me, along with my Senseis' feedback for how I could improve my form for the future.

I felt like I had gotten rid of all the white on my belt, but not in my mind. My aikido is far from flawless. I still need to work on taking balance. Not compromising my own posture for an opponent who is taller or bigger or stronger than me. Step in evenly toe-to-toe, and not move so far back. Use my hips to move with power and not rely on my arm strength. Ki'ai and breathe. Relax and loosen up. Kept it steady, keep it strong.

Now I am approaching the more arduous part of the path, the rougher terrain in the road. There's more to learn, more to memorize. There will be more rigid criticism on the mistakes in my techniques, more attention to detail. There are the doubts, and anxiety, and nervousness, and fear. And then there is learning how to conquer these things, like everything else in life worth reaching for.