Resilience

According to my trusty Roget’s Thesaurus, resilience is the ability to recover quickly from depression or discouragement; or flexibility. Acknowledging this trait is usually stress induced, I regard it as an essential tool for one’s sense of homeostasis or balance. When given certain stresses beyond the normal capacity of tolerance, the choice to break, or bend and recover, is rooted in this concept. Let’s explore what it could mean to have an opportunity to practice developing resilience without exposing oneself to extreme traumas constantly. It can be applied in a literal and physical manifestation as I have found through my training in Aikido, but it can also be applied more figuratively like an emotional or psychological exhibition of “handling trauma with grace.”

I recently indulged in the reality series on the History Channel called Forged In Fire, where competitors are challenged to produce a functional blade in an extremely hot environment under a significant time crunch. When steel that has been heat treated reveals it's threshold. It will either weld together and harden, or it will expose deficiencies in the process making it susceptible to a myriad of structural fails. The strength of the final blade is determined by the resilience of both the steel and the blade-smith. A different example from the natural world is bamboo. I have often used bamboo as an example when teaching Aikido for understanding the principle of resilience with regard to agility. It is extremely flexible and strong, and it doesn’t break under the stress when bent because of this inherent flexibility.

Let me explain.

In traditional Aikido practice, we assume roles of the attacker ‘uke’ and the attacked ‘nage’. The attacker’s (uke’s) role is to sincerely offer an opportunity in the form of an attack (grab or strike), so that the attacked (nage) can employ a set combined movements (techniques). It is indeed a cooperative art. We contrive situations over and over again to practice each role with one another with the mutual goal of helping one another get better at each part. One requires as much attention to the role of uke as to the catalog of techniques used by nage. I know this doesn’t sound very martial, but once both partners (as we call them, not opponents) have studied these movements and principles to the point of instinct, anybody can attain any level of fitness or martial intensity.

To explain further, let’s first look what is involved in a physical conflict that is resolved through the interaction of uke and nage: Uke has a defined role to commit to an attack of some sort (with or without a weapon) with the intention of making solid contact to inflict physical harm to nage. Nage responds with opening movements to access and embody the techniques and principles of Aikido. As a technique unfolds, uke is expected to blend with the movements and receive the outcome of the technique. At this point, uke has the choice to be resilient and follow the flow of the technique, or resist and risk injury to oneself. As uke recognizes the path of least resistance is to indeed concede to the movement created by nage, uke can absorb the technique and commit to some act of recovery through a fall or submission. And then we do it over and over again, without much trauma and with the intent of the improvement of both people involved. One of the very first things a student is taught in Aikido is how to fall safely to the ground and return to a standing or upright position as soon as possible. As a longtime practitioner of Aikido and body work professional, I have found this particular skill set is transcendent of Aikido and is applicable in maintaining functional mobility through later stages of life. Think about being able to clip your own toenails and get up off the ground when you are in your 80’s…

Functional applications of these skills have become my focus as I approach my 26th year doing bodywork and my 28th year of studying Aikido. Through cross-referencing the concepts of body work and movement and recently incorporating Yin yoga teacher training to my repertoire, I recognize resilience as a common thread in all these modalities. The gentler applications of stress or, say, the “traumas” I choose to train my mind, body, and spirit open me to the opportunity for instinct to apply the same principles in other non-physical situations. I hope to share this experience through my service with massage and bodywork as well as through teaching Aikido and other spiritual movement arts for many years to come.

In Yoga, we say Namaste…in Aikido we say Onegaeshimasu!