Three year ago, when our annual meeting happened in Germany, I gave a workshop about Aikido and conflict resolution. Being a student of this art for several years, I was starting to make connections between Aikido and the experiential work that we do. First of all, like all other martial arts, the training is eminently "by doing". No amount of reading and discussing will bring you anywhere, if you don't enter the mat, bow to your partner, and start sweating your kimono. All the intellectualizations can only happen after you do things. They are a consequence of "doing", instead of the reason for doing. Sounds familiar?
Also, Aikido is an art of self-defense where you neutralize the attack by harmonizing yourself with it's energy, and using it against the attacker. Without the attack, there is no energy directed against you, and therefore, nothing for you to use in order to apply a technique. Any attack will not be a harmonious action within this "harmonious interaction of energy" context, and therefore it is not Aikido -ergo- you can't use true Aikido for aggression. This concept turned specially interesting after several jobs with youth-at-risk groups from the San Francisco Bay Area. A martial art like this felt like a great tool to turn all the aggression those kids bring with them into something constructive.
With those things in mind, and having given workshops on the technical aspects of mobile ropes course building on the two previous meetings (where I new exactly where was I going to start and where was I going to stop), I decided to step out of the confort zone and try an experimental workshop for a change. I had good feedback from the people who participated, but I was less happy than the participants with it. Time constraints had kept us from processing the experience, and the connections with our profession were there, but kind of tenuous. I decided to think about it for a while before I offered Aikido on a workshop again.
Last year, after doing Jac's workshop on archery in Portugal, I talked to him and the idea of doing something using two martial arts (one teaches how to shoot a weapon - the bow, the other, mostly unarmed combat - Aikido) on a non-martial context would be an interesting challenge. I decide to focus on how Aikido deals with resistance, because of the similarities with how we deal with a resistant group or group member. It is my experience that by opposing the resistance we only creates more resistance. What always worked best for me is to find some point where I can be in harmony with the resistance, take the lead from there, and find ways that allow the group to experiment and try new things. This seemed to be an interesting starting point.
We focused on the period of time that happens between the attack and the application of a technique (which in Aikido will be either a lock or a throw). The first movement of the attacker will cause you to move your body in order to harmonize yourself with it. Your move will cause a reaction on the attacker, which will cause a reaction on you, which will continue until this "dialog of movement" is over. This will happen either when the attacker realizes attacking you is not a good idea and stops, or when he/she is neutralized by a technique.
We started with warm-ups, and then, working in pairs, started to build a "conversation of movements" which started with the "attacker" grabbing our wrist in order to control it and keep us from moving. We explored options in different directions, and the movements they caused, all the time switching between the role of "Uke" (the attacker) and Nage (the one who uses an Aikido technique to neutralize the attack). This switching of roles is necessary in Aikido training because if both participants want to use Aikido on each other at the same time, there will be no attack and therefore no training.
We finished with an exercise of energy projection, which demands concentration and relaxation, both of which Jac and I thought would be a good mood to start dealing with archery training. The processing of the experience was done during the arrow painting activity, in which Jac asked all to think of something of importance related to the last workshop we did and paint it. As Jac was one of the organizers of the conference, we had very little time to coordinate what we where going to do together, and even though it wasn't surprising, it was very exiting to see how much Aikido and Archery have in common, both in terms of body attitude and mental attitude.
I am quite happy with what we accomplished with the workshops, and I am looking forward to continue my research in this direction. My many thanks to all the participants who allowed me to go out on a limb and try out something new. I hope to see you all again at our meeting next year.
Peace
Gabriel