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.