January 4, 2021

When I was in my late 20’s I signed up for a martial arts class with a friend of mine.

The class was Aikido, a Japanese self-defense course.  The idea with Aikido is that when someone attacks you, they are out of balance and so you move in such a way as to help them collapse, using their own energy.  The idea is to step out of their way to protect yourself, but also to protect them as they fall.  You step out of the way or flip them, but it’s really their own momentum and imbalance that does the trick.

It’s been a long time since I took that class, so I may not be explaining it with complete accuracy, and sadly the class didn’t work out for me.

The thing about it was that I GOT the basic idea of it, and it worked, so I was able to flip my “opponents”, my fellow students, out of the way, even though I did not have perfect form.

But my lack of perfect form was very offensive to my instructor, one of the apprentices who ran the class who was not any older than I was. And neither one of us were Japanese. She got very upset with me and verbally humiliated me in front of the class for doing the moves incorrectly.  She brought me to tears, even though I was doing very well in the class.

At that moment I realized that what I needed most was Emotional and Verbal Aikido.

I needed a way to turn her verbal and emotional assault around, so that her own imbalance would flip her and stop her.  In hindsight, I wish that I had reported her, or taken the same class at a different studio, because it was a brilliant form, and I wish I had learned it more thoroughly.

Instead I’ve spent a lifetime learning (and often failing at) the art of Emotional Aikido.
Although these lessons have seemed challenging to me, I know that I have a great deal of privilege and power in my life.  But I haven’t always been aware of it.

I didn’t set out to try to learn Emotional Aikido.  It seemed to me, and I hate to admit it because it often does seem to me, that good behavior is something that I should be able to take for granted from my colleagues.

This is a very naïve assumption on my part, but for heaven’s sake, I have worked with some very intelligent, professional, dedicated and spiritually-minded people throughout the years, and it has always surprised me when one or more of them have treated me and/or others badly, without provocation or explanation.  So then I have to “suit up” and do the Emotional and Verbal Aikido. With or without good form.

I can promise you that this is a lot of work. It involves painful scrutiny, self-reflection, honesty and integrity.  It requires precise verbal dexterity and articulation. It involves accurate accountability, the knowledge and history of the assumed (and often false) levels of hierarchies present, plus a working knowledge of the facts. It requires an ability to perceive and distinguish between numerous forms of emotionally manipulative and verbally abusive tactics, like lying and distorting and minimizing and twisting the truth, and other forms of bullying and coercion. Finally, it requires the courage to confront these, name them, and hand them back. This accountability is the “flipping” part of the Verbal Aikido: naming and handing back the stuff that doesn’t belong to you. Stepping out of the way in order to give the other person the opportunity to experience the consequences of their own drama. A friend of mine calls this “giving them the gift of your integrity.”

Simultaneously, while doing all of this there’s also the need to assess one’s own emotions, observe these emotions, and to move in a timely, unhurried manner with a focus and clarity of mind balanced by grace and humor. That grace and humor part is the “good form” portion of Emotional Aikido, and apparently I continue to be given the opportunity to develop it.

This has been a hard week. I started writing this on the 4th of January. By Saturday the 9th, the world had changed again, but the words I continued to hear this week were about the need for accountability and restorative justice.

Accountability.  Josh Marshall said “Forgiveness begins with accountability. . .  Reconciliation without accountability is just another name for impunity.”  And Timothy Snyder said (and I paraphrase): “The truth comes home when you have accountability.”

I think we have a lot of work to do, and Emotional Aikido is only a small part of it.  But I hope you’re able to hand things back that don’t belong to you, so that the people in your life who try to cause you grief are able to experience the consequences of their own drama.  Even if that is sad to watch.

To my old instructor of Aikido: you were the one who failed, and we both know it.

Breathe, everybody.  Let’s get back to work.