Joint Locking: The New Zen Meditation

Which is a truly inappropriate way to begin a post that is really about personal development and violence.  (I seem to be bleeding contrasts tonight).  I'm not even sure how to access what it is I want to say in a way that isn't going to sound like an infomercial for my own wacky brand of living the zen life.  I don't even really believe in living a "zen" life the way we have all come to understand the word "zen".  It's become a cheese-ball metaphysical pursuit for people with enough comfort and money to be able to afford meditation retreats, and expensive accouterments to aid one in the pursuit of "higher" living.  (Barf).  (Oh dear...excuse me there.)

I will write until I've told you what it is that's happening to me right now.  There is no such thing as huge immediate personal shifts.  You know how some people have a life threatening experience and come out of it suddenly uber-religious and vocal about their reformed new life walking in the footsteps of Jesus Christ the man who's got it all going on?  That kind of sudden fervent spiritual discovery isn't real.  It may become real with practice, patience, and changing the inner landscape of your spirit and mind, but you don't just wake up a changed person.

There are some really good shifts happening right now in my life.  I am still struggling with inertia (the new medications are helping) but as I've said a thousand times before- this is my brain and there's no cure for what ails it.  That doesn't mean that things can't be greatly improved in my mental and emotional landscape, they can and they are.  The shifts are happening partly because of the new medication easing up the weight and dark in my head.  Partly it's because I promised the psychiatrist that I wanted to, and could, prevent myself from becoming a hopeless fat alcoholic middle aged depressed outcast so long as I had better meds to support me in my efforts and it is so far not at all difficult to not drink for several days a week.  After years of over indulging and not feeling that I can back down from my beer infused ledge- this is a tremendous change for me and is empowering.  I knew I could do it because I don't drink alcohol to get drunk or buzzed- but I needed something else that would give my brain the help the beer offered.

And then there's the Kung Fu.  This discipline is exactly what I needed in ways I coudln't have imagined it helping me.  I have to confess that I might not be having this experience if I didn't have the instructor I do.  I think Philip chose the best school for who we are.  Mr. Bronson is absolutely the perfect person to lead us through this learning.  He is passionate, dedicated, genuine, energetic, kind, and patient.  He is dedicated to organic living (especially since his wife developed multiple chemical sensitivity) and nurturing body mind and spirit.  Yes, you'd expect that of any martial arts teacher, right?  But what I love about how he teaches is that his drive is to teach his students how to defend themselves and in order to defend yourself you have to know how to harm someone else.  I love that he doesn't try to wrap the art up in clean linen, so to speak.  Most of what we learn in Kung Fu is how to damage other human beings.

You'd think I'd object to that.  I am 100% committed to leading a nonviolent life and I am adamant about my antiwar beliefs.  Those facts are immutable for me.  But here's something I know about life to my own cost: it is violent.  At some point in most people's lives they will experience violence of some kind inflicted by another human being.  Women are raped all the time.  ALL THE FUCKING TIME.  Children are molested.  Children are abused.  People are beat up.  Killed.  Assaulted during theft.  Bullied.  Tortured.  This is a part of the world we live in.  So you can learn how to break a man's knuckles to prevent him from raping you, or you can hope to god you'll be able to talk yourself out of being violated.  My mother actually managed to do that once when she was pregnant with me, however, most men intent on raping a woman have already decided they are going to do it and there is nothing you can do to stop them.

Unless, of course, you know how to lock their joints and dislocate their elbow, or throw them to the ground by deflecting a blow and administering one of your own.  That's powerful.  To feel your body learn to do these things.  It is not a man's world, really.  I'll tell you what would cut down on the number of rapes a year by 75% or more?: all women learning Kung Fu.  I'm not kidding.

I like that Mr. Bronson teaches us that the philosophy of Kung Fu is based in Buddhism and that the driving ideal of the discipline is to do no harm.  There is a kind of litany Bronson goes through of the efforts you should make before resorting to hurting another human being.  He likes to tell his students that the first four principles of Kung Fu are: get away, get away, get away, and get away.  Tonight he was teaching us how to tear shoulder joints out of place, possibly break elbows, and throw a person down with a stick.  This is serious shit.  I mean, this isn't any kind of watered down version of what you can do to human joints to disable an attacker: we could feel it when our practice partners had got the move right because our joints stiffened and if our partner kept going we would be thrown down.  I loved it!

I've already mentioned how much out of my comfort zone I am every time I go to class but how every time I'm in the middle of class I forget the anxiety and let go of my concerns and inhibitions and I just do what Mr. Bronson says and I am always able to do what he asks me to do.  Which hasn't stopped surprising me yet.  The sweat is not fun.  Not mine, not everyone else's. 

There are more subtle things going on under the surface.  When I took fencing I loved it for many of the same reasons I'm loving Kung Fu; the honor in fighting, the gracefulness of learning the motions and actions meant to disarm or kill another human being, the physical work out it gives...but with fencing you are always keeping a distance between yourself and your opponent and so in some ways it felt a little bit intellectual.  I could step aside a little and even though I was sparring I could be an observer too and I could control my level of presence.

This is the thing I'm trying to get at- I have a lot of body issues that are part and parcel of my mental illness and it is often difficult for me to be truly present in my own body.  Bodies bother me, disturb me, and are unsafe.  I don't like people I don't know touching me.  I don't like using my body freely in front of people- doing physical things.  I don't dance, I don't like to engage in competitive sports, and I am constantly uncomfortable doing anything particularly silly with it.  Ask me to pretend to dig a ditch and I will feel a hundred kinds of uncomfortable and will do almost anything to avoid having to do that. 

Kung Fu is forcing me to be very present in my body.  I have to be or I can't do it.  There's no such thing as stepping aside mentally, spiritually, or physically.  To learn it you have to DO it.  I wanted to die a little with that shadow boxing exercise but I did it.  That may have been my worst moment so far.  Pretending to fight someone feels ridiculous.  I don't like feeling physically ridiculous.** 

So yes, I'm fat, and I have issues with that too.  But the only time I have actually felt fat during class was when the other student called me huge three times in a row.  I am not used to this feeling.  It's new.  It's really empowering.  While I'm doing whatever is being asked of me, regardless of whether I'm doing it well or not, I don't have any thoughts like "I can't do this" or "I'm too fat to do that" or "how stupid will I look trying to do that?".  Try to understand how monumental that is for me.  I admit that every time before I have to do an exercise where I am tangling my limbs up with other people's limbs who I'm not married to or friends with- I do have to do a brief mental shake and remind myself that the second I'm doing it I will feel fine.

And I do.  I do feel fine.  I feel better than fine.  Never before has a physical activity united my mind, my body, and my spirit all at the same time.  So it's weird because it seems that learning to maim another human being can also be a healing meditation in which I can also feel more peace and confidence in my own skin.  Going to the gym was fine but had only one purpose.  It was easily boring and therefor slightly dreaded.  Every time I come to Kung Fu there's something new and each class is different.  Never the same exactly. 

I don't have any fancy meditation candles to light.  No fancy Buddha statues or smug faux-Asian style affectations of zen to impress you with.  But I know how to lock your wrist up and throw your elbow out.  You could learn to do the same to me.  You might be surprised by how much fun it is.

I think you know as well I as know that there are a million challenges ahead- because there always are.  I'm feeling like maybe I can jump over them now with a little more elan.







*I know you don't want to know what I mean by this and yet you really do because you're human.  Anyone know what the hell I'm talking about?  Go ahead- give it a guess!!!

**That is a breathtaking understatement.