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Turning Away Wrath
by
Michael Partie
August 1968. My friend Robert Armstrong
and I picked our way through unfamiliar campsites under
the Pacific sun. Scout troops from all over Guam and from
Japan had gathered for the first Camporee ever held on
the island. Both eleven years old, I don’t remember
why we were on our way to the assembly area or what we
were talking about. I don’t remember whether this
was the day the monitor lizard invaded our tent or the
weekend we got sliced up by sword grass looking for WWII
artifacts. I don’t remember whether the rabies outbreak
had abated or if it was still in full swing, but what
happened as we entered the campsite of the kid with the
axe remains vivid to this day. There, in the relentless
summer heat, I was moments away from the most powerful
demonstration of martial arts in action I have ever seen.
Robert and I were talking and entered
the campsite without realizing it. A white boy about our
age was chopping wood with a hand axe. When the boy saw
us he scowled at Robert. “What are you doing here,
nigger?” he said. I froze. I’d never heard
that word directed at another person and it just paralyzed
me, but Robert didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward,
extending his hand. “Hello,” he said. “My
name is Robert Armstrong.”
The muscles of the boy’s face went
slack and the axe slipped from his fingers. As if rising
of its own accord, his hand extended toward Robert’s.
Never breaking eye contact, Robert gripped the boy’s
hand in a brief handshake. Then we moved on, leaving the
boy dazed, gaping after us, his axe forgotten on the ground
at his feet.
Faced with malignant ugliness and threat,
Robert offered the boy friendship, and to paraphrase Jonathan
Swift, became a star of superior influence, drawing him
into his own vortex. Robert did not retreat, nor did he
escalate the conflict. In an extraordinary act of courage,
Robert entered through the boy’s provocation and
quite literally disarmed him with a word and a gesture.
I’m not suggesting that if that kid actually swung
his axe at Robert’s head, Robert’s actions
would have stopped it. Robert had courage and grace, but
he wasn’t a Jedi, and for all his belligerence that
kid wasn’t really going to strike Robert with that
axe. The assault was psychological, directed at Robert’s
spirit. Robert’s answer was to direct his own spirit
in an act of power and kindness and clear intent. Robert
responded to the boy’s malice by looking him in
the eyes and stepping fearlessly into the void that separated
them. Robert rejected the boy’s invective and refused
to be objectified; instead he asserted his identity: My
name is Robert Armstrong.
Nearly forty years later the memory still
sends a chill up my spine. In that moment Robert showed
me another way to be in the world, a challenging way to
think about conflict and about being a human being. It
came to me at a time before I had the maturity to fully
grasp it, but it stayed with me always, waiting patiently
for understanding. Robert and I never talked about the
incident, but I wish we had. How had he experienced it?
What gave him the strength to act with such poise –
to fearlessly step forward in the face of such withering
hatred and offer his hand? I wish I could talk to Robert
about it today. I wonder whether his life was in any way
shaped by that encounter, or if this was just one of many
such incidents he faced as a black youth growing up in
the 1960s.
In 1963 Martin Luther King, Jr. proclaimed
from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that, “we
must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical
force with soul force.” Robert unquestionably did
that, but I wonder how an eleven-year-old boy had the
courage and presence of mind to make such an enlightened
response to racist aggression. Perhaps Robert was precociously
wise and his actions emerged spontaneously from some deep
spiritual center. Certainly, he seemed inspired. More
likely though, Robert’s father, a man of dignity
who held a third degree black belt in karate and who himself
had experienced racial segregation and institutional repression,
provided a powerful model for his son and taught him some
effective, non-violent strategies for dealing with racial
taunts. I think that is the great hope of the world, that
wise parents can nurture resilience and strength of character
in their children, and that hatred can be effectively
countered by kindness.
History teaches us that spiritual giants
like Dr. King and Mahatma Gandhi used nonviolence to shake
the foundations of empire, and we admire them and even
mythologize them. Their example teaches us that strength
of will, dedication to peace, and a ferocious love of
humanity – a warrior’s love – can change
the course of history. But Robert wasn’t a giant.
He was an eleven-year-old boy who treaded lightly on the
earth, and so his lesson is perhaps even more vital: Even
the very small and modest can oppose hostility and violence
without resorting to either.
It’s cliché to say that
peace is brought about through strength because what most
people mean by that is pax baculum, peace through the
cudgel – peace through threat of force. What Dr.
King and Mahatma Gandhi taught, and what Robert enacted,
was thought and action of a much higher order. Their acts
of power, through commitment to peace and to a mutual
preservation of life, rendered them what in Japanese is
called katsu jin ken, or the “life-giving sword.”
Power used in the service of compassion
and integrity allows the individual to serve society.
This is one of the grander aspirations of martial arts
and what elevates sul (technique or methods) to do (way
of life or way of being). Great skill and power provides
the opportunity – the option – to be merciful,
and with the opportunity to be merciful comes the obligation
to be merciful. In a serious encounter, where life may
be lost on either side, to dare to spare your opponent,
to become a life-giving sword and not a life-taking sword,
requires exceptional skill and courage.
By offering his hand in friendship in
response to the boy’s threat, Robert offered him
a choice, an opportunity to take another path. To be fearful
or weak in that moment would have caused his actions to
fail. Somehow, with no formal training, Robert was able
to naturally and organically harness and direct his ki
to resolve the encounter in a peaceful way.
Ki is often vaguely conceptualized as
“spiritual” power or “internal energy,”
but it can be understood in a more substantial way as
a sort of focused application of breath, intention, dynamic
relaxation, extension, posture, focus, body mechanics,
weight, extension, timing, acceleration, and hip movement.
It is easy to see how this manifests physically in breaking
boards, concrete, bones, and other material objects.
Ki may also be expressed in everyday
speech or gesture. In social interaction, ki may be understood
as coordinated breath, intention, dynamic relaxation,
focus, posture, temperament, poise, timing, acquired wisdom,
verbal fluency, intuition, compassion, spiritual centeredness,
and voice quality or tone.
In martial arts training, we are taught
to shout in order to focus our power in delivering a strike
or kick. We call this shout a kihap because it is meant
to unify or coordinate (hap) our energy (ki). But the
kihap isn’t actually the shout itself. The shout
can summon the kihap or may itself be a sonic expression
of kihap, but the kihap itself takes place deep within
ourselves and may be completely silent.
The silent kihap is used to summon our
whole selves – all the multitudinous diverse elements
– and to invest it in our daily conduct. Its manifestation
may be seen in focusing the will to undertake challenges,
to endure adversity, to influence the thoughts and actions
of others, and to bring about peace. It’s ironic
that this ability is forged through the practice of interpersonal
combat, yet it remains the higher purpose of martial arts
training.
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