Ignorance and disbelief can be bliss…

Posted by danielle on Jan 10, 2012 | 1 comment

I suppose it had to happen sooner or later, but this wasn’t quite what I was expecting.  You see last week, in my first level three class, I discovered that I do believe in myself.  You’d think that that would be a wonderful, monumental moment.  It would be something to celebrate and cheer about.  Nope.  I was, instead, stunned, terrified and horrified.  I found myself once again questioning whether I should be studying this art.  Yup.  Fear and doubt in place of triumph and jubilation.

What caused this moment?  Muso dori or good waiter/bad waiter, if you prefer.  If you haven’t seen it, that’s okay.  All you need to know is that it is destructive – the aggressor’s elbow and shoulder will be ruined.  What I found myself horrified at was not purely the destructiveness, but also the simplicity of the technique.  Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that I can “do” the technique, but it does have an insanely high ratio of damage to effort. While all of our techniques when “right” seem to require no effort (Everyone repeat after me: “But I didn’t do anything!”), none have seemed so devastating to me as this one in the moment.

Now it’s not like I haven’t seen similarly destructive techniques before.  I’ve gasped more than a few times watching T and Dennis over the past few years.  But watching someone else, someone much further along their path, is very different then the moment in which you discover that you, yourself, are developing the potential to become dangerous.  It’s the moment when you realize that you have, indeed, amassed some small amount of knowledge and skill, enough that you can, although crudely, hurt someone.  In that moment, I went from being horrified at the simplicity to being terrified of my own reactions, my lack of control.

Does it sound strange that I would be terrified of how I might react, of my potential lack of control?  Maybe, but maybe not.  Back in level one, during a month in which we were working on the sleeve grab technique, Jami and I were horsing around as we walked into a store.  We were jokingly pushing one another back and forth across the parking lot.  At one point, she went to pinch just above my elbow from behind, grabbing my sleeve in the process, and in the next moment she had a fat lip.  When she had grabbed, I took a half step back and threw my elbow up and over her arm as she continued walking forward.  My elbow connected with the corner of her mouth.  I hadn’t intended to hurt her.  I hadn’t intended to even use a technique.  It just sort of happened and I felt terrible about it.  I eventually was able to dismiss that moment because it seemed like a fluke.  I couldn’t really hurt anyone even if it was necessary.  It was just an accident.

Since then I’ve had more than a few occasions where my training has saved me from significant harm.  I can’t deny that it is “sticking,” that I am learning something.  I can’t quite say that “I can’t do this” even though the words keep falling out of my mouth.  The truth is that I do have the capacity, that I believe I am capable.  Believing that though means that I do believe I could really hurt someone if I had to and, without having a better sense of control, potentially by accident as well.  Neither of these two things sit well with me.  In fact, my mantra the night I discovered this was, “I’m not okay with this.”

I’ll concede that not being okay with developing destructive potential probably sounds as if it runs counter to studying a martial art in the first place.  The truth is that I never went into this looking to become some sort of deadly kick butt chick.  In fact, training with one of the other women at the dojo the first time, I once said, “But I really don’t want to punch.”  She responded by asking me, “Then what are you doing here?”  All I could say was that it was complicated.  To this day, I can’t clearly articulate what I was and am looking for.  I guess, in the simplest terms, you could say that I was looking for a modicum of safety and a bit of confidence.  The truth is a bit larger than that, but that will do for now because all that is important is that I never wanted the capacity to cause harm to someone else.

Having been on the receiving end of violence, I can, without effort, envision broken bones, dislocations and a myriad of other painful results from a strike, kick or choke.  Knowing what these things feel like make me more than uncomfortable having the knowledge or skill to do the same.  It’s not a question of could I or would I do these things if I were forced into a situation where it were necessary.  It’s a question of whether or not I could I live with myself if I were to have to and did do these things. 

Yes, I realize it is always a last resort.   Yes, I realize that the aggressor is bringing it upon themselves if it were to occur.  While it seems that others have repeated this to me quite a bit as of late, it somehow doesn’t make any of this sit any better with me.  Somehow just having or working towards the knowledge and skill feels wrong to me.  At this point, I don’t really know how I’ll get past this, though I’m sure I will because, as one of the women said last week, “I’ve come too far to quit now.”  In the meantime, I guess I’ll work on being more aware of my reactions so that I don’t accidentally do more than give someone a fat lip…

Danielle DeBlois
SMAC Student