Aikido and Recovery

 How do you manage to balance (or not) martial arts and other parts of your life?

Aikido is a big part of my mental/personal health. I learn lessons there to apply to my personal emotional challenges. It’s been instrumental in the healing and recovery I am trying to do. It shows me in a kinetic and physical way where my fears still are, and what I can do about them.
Getting personal here, TW mentions of abuse and trauma:

It’s not an official “diagnosis”, but I have a decade or two’s worth of Complex-PTSD, which in my case is the slow trauma I got from long term bullying or emotional abuse, with threats or incidents of physical abuse. I have complex trust issues and problems ever feeling safe. Besides the obvious physical empowerment of a martial art for some self defense, Aikido is teaching me to practice trust, to enforce boundaries, and to speak up when people hurt me or I am uncomfortable.

That last is very difficult as I have had a lifetime of being "trained", told repeatedly and firmly, to be silent when I am hurting or unhappy. In our Aikido Dojo, if you ask someone to stop hurting you... they stop, instead of laughing, ignoring you, dismissing your pain, or increasing it for their entertainment. That is very new and precious to me and I am learning from it.

I am learning which motions still make me uncomfortable, and then in my outside therapy I can address the reasons for those. I get severely dizzy doing a certain turn and I realized it’s because I hate moving backward when I can’t see what’s behind me... because of fear and hypervigilance. I was able to then talk to my counselor about that.

I am also learning how to move with and around things instead of fighting against them. That’s the literal principle behind Aikido but it’s also been helping me in my emotional and personal struggles. “It is far easier to roll a rock, using its own momentum, than to try to carry the same rock. Stop trying to carry the rock!” I put myself through a lot of mental anguish I do not have to actually deal with any more  if I would just stop trying to carry it. So now it’s in inner mantra- “Stop trying to carry the rock!”

Aikido and Grief

Jul 8. 2015
I had to let my darling dog go “Home” this last week. It was hard for me, but she was losing her ability to do all the things she wanted to do, and her body was quitting on her. She was already aching most of the time, so we let her go before she started to really suffer. I think I’m handling it as best as can be expected. I had a while to get used to the idea and really adjust to it as a huge change in my life. Funny thing was, Aikido helped me through it.

I had told Sensei I might not be at our session on Thursday because that morning we were putting my dear dog ‘to sleep’. He understood and was very kind and sympathetic.

So when I showed up on Thursday afternoon, he raised his eyebrows and said, “I thought you weren’t going come to practice today!”

And I said, “At first I wasn’t going to be here, because I knew how much I’d be dealing with… Then I realized that that’s exactly why I needed to be here.”

He nodded. “That’s right.” Just before he turned away I saw his grin. I think he was trying not to show too much of how proud he was that this week I had grasped a part of Aikido Zen.

Weird Martial arts dreams

"Tell me about your martial arts dreams. Like the ones when you are asleep."

Hoo boy I had a heck of one last night. Lemme get to my laptop and edit it in here.

So I seemed to be high school age again, me and a few friends were attending this conference meeting thing with a bunch of other high schoolers at a big building with lawn around it, right across from my high school. Somehow I was a practicing Aikidoka then. I think in the dream, Sensei’s dojo was based in my high school, not at my college as is reality.

Everyone at this meeting got really angry with our group, I think it was because after the meeting and potluck snacking, we took back the leftover cookies we had brought and we ate the rest that the meeting people had not eaten. For dream reasons, this made them all furious at us. They really wanted to punch our faces in.

We tried to run for our huge white van and leave, but we were missing one of our group, a very shy girl. Outside on the lawn around the building, teens were gathering to work themselves up and get really ready to find us and beat us up. They were standing around in loose groups of twos and threes all over two sides of the building.
So I said to my friends with me in the van, “Drop me off over by all those people. I think I can do something about this. While I have them busy you go into the other side of the building, find *shy girl* and get her out. Then come back around pick me up. I might be running.”

So they drove past the crowded side and I kinda hopped out of the van as it slowed down, and all the angry teens saw me, and I didn’t say anything I just started walking though them. I knew they were all set to attack someone, so it might as well be me. I could keep them occupied.
The first one ran at me and BOOM, Aikido throw. And the next. And the next. It was very gentle. I just grabbed a wrist here, and arm there, and sat them down on the grass. They looked up at me kinda stunned.
I just kept on at a waking pace through the crowd, throw after throw, one after another. It was really hard to keep it up, and I am not very experienced so sometimes it was difficult. I kept saying, “Have you had enough? I have. I’ll stop when you do. I don’t want to fight.” There were at least 40 people.
After a while things slowed down and they were kind of avoiding me, in shock.
My friends swung around and picked me up in the van and we got outta there.

Then I was at school, and suddenly hearing rumors about a big fight, and that I had “beat up a bunch of people”. My heart sank and I knew I was gonna get expelled for violent behavior. Everyone was treating me oddly now that the whole school had heard I “started a big fight and beat up people”.

 I spent the whole day being very quiet, and proving to people who asked that what I had used was gentle and defensive and that I had actually been careful not to harm anyone. Then I felt I had to confess to Sensei all the details of what had happened, and that I had used Aikido in such a manner.

 I was so mortified he would disapprove and tell me I had misused it. I was also very afraid he’d have already heard one of his students had “instigated a big fight and beaten a bunch of people up”, and would be upset and ashamed of me.

At practice, in front of everyone, I made a formal bowed apology for all the disturbance I had been central in, and explained the entire thing as honestly as I could. I don’t know if Sensei was upset, because then the dream shifted and I’ll never know what he though.
And all that was last night.

Martial Arts: Why I don't Kiap

A Kiai or Kiap is a shout you traditionally make in martial arts in order to give your motions more power, draw a bit more energy into your movements, distract the opponent or just focus your mind. However, I do not hardly ever use them. Most people will be awkward using them because they feel like it's embarrassing or sounds silly. There are lots of people who feel uncomfortable making those weird sounds.

I have “problems” with this myself, but for other reasons. I can either focus on making a noise, or I can focus on what I am doing. I cannot seem to do both. I hate making loud random noises.

Probably because I really hate loud random noises. And I call it “problems” because it isn’t something I am choosing to “fix”.

Being Autistic impacts martial arts study in so many ways. I have serious hypersensitivity that means sharp loud noises hurt me. I have a problem with my flight or fight response that makes me seriously hate being startled. I don’t like the sensation of being slapped in the ear that a sharp noise gives, and I don’t like it when people shout near or at me. 

Being autistic, I spent most of my life smiling when people tell me to smile, saying what society tells me to say, moving the way I am supposed to move, laughing when I’m supposed to laugh, speaking when I’m supposed to speak. Say this. Now say that. Say this to her. Say that to him. Good girl. Good girl says what she is supposed to say. Say the words.

Life has been about doing things that cause me distress, fear or pain because they are little gestures other people will appreciate. Shaking hands when my hands are easily hurt. Hugging when I can’t stand to be touched and panic to be trapped against someone else. Clapping on days when sharp noises hurt. Every day I do something or many things that are upsetting for me because it’s what other people expect of me. Ever since my family has become more aware of this, they appreciate when I put myself through things that are painful for me, like concert performances, in order to show support for them the same way other people would. They support me through my problems with these things and are deeply grateful when they can see I am doing something difficult for me in order to show my love for them.

So: I hope people can see that it’s more than just me being stubborn when I say I will not shout just because it is traditional or helpful *to everyone else* to shout.

I am not like everyone else. That’s the truth of the matter. I am not going to pretend that I am. I am an exception. I accept that. It doesn’t make me better  or more “special” than anyone else, but I am DONE pretending I am like everyone else. 

(Insert commenter with well-meaning “everybody is different” speech here, rebutted by actual diagnosis and brain scans, and moving on. Autistic people are people but they are not Like Everyone Else in some very significant ways. It’s just the scientific truth.)

Martial arts, for me, is about me finally being the one who is deciding what my body does and what I do. It’s about me deciding, for once in my life, when I will speak and when I will be silent. 

Until forced, I will not shout. I decide now when I make the obligatory gesture which pleases others but causes me pain, and when I do what is safe, comfortable and right for me.

So if someone you train with will not shout, see if they are comfortable telling you why. Maybe they have a reason about shyness, or things they’ve been through, or they worry about looking foolish. Or maybe they are like me, making a choice because they have finally learned how to own their bodies and choose for themselves whether they will do a thing that is painful to them.

Minor epiphanies (warning, sexually motivated violence discussed)

I kind of gave another Martial Arts friend, who is Male, a minor epiphany earlier this last year.

"Look, there is a difference: How and Why a statistically probable attacker comes at you ( A Male) is not going to be the same as how and why he comes at me ( A Female). 

Statistically, if a guy attacks you, he’ll be some dude you don’t know, and it’s because he wants to start a fight- It’s a male dominance thing. There’ll be a bit of posturing and he’ll do the come at me bro thing, or he’ll be telling you to give him your wallet. 

On the other hand, statistically, when I (female) am attacked it will be someone I know and it will be sexually motivated. He won’t be aiming primarily to  damage me or take my money, he’ll be aiming to drag me somewhere, control my body position and ability to escape, and try to touch or rape me, then probably murder me to keep me from talking. 

The techniques I use are learned with this mindset. You’re defending your wallet and your ribs and face. I am defending my body and my Being from violation. A guy who grabs you wants to hit you a few times and take your stuff. A guy who grabs me, I have to assume, is there for rape and murder, in that order.”

He’d never considered that before.