Moo

In Korean they call this “Moo.”  Moo is one of the basic tenets of all martial arts training.  In Soo Bahk Do, we were always taught to understand the symbology as “Stop Sword” — the left hand portion of the character representing the stopping of the sword represented in a flourish on the right.  Take it a step further, it means to stop fighting.  In a sense, Moo represents peace.  But it is not itself peace, it is, instead, action toward resolution.  The manifestation of violence ceased by nonviolence.

It is interesting to many Westerners initially to practice martial arts toward the goal of nonviolence.  True martial arts promote peace, cooperation and camaraderie.  The practice is itself meant to cleanse the body and mind so that the practitioner feels at peace.  Maybe for some who get carried away with power, they want to go out and start fights.  Maybe for others, dealing with power teaches them the important lessons in wielding it appropriately.  Maybe some do not even know they have power at all.

Sifu says if you stop fighting inside, you no longer fight outside.  So it is not the physical discipline that is of utmost importance, it is the internal cultivation.  Note that I say cultivation and not discipline, though in a sense it is a discipline.  There is a fine line, however, and it must be distinguished.

In many esoteric disciplines the sword represents the mind — intellect, cutting words, wit, anxiety, so on.  And so in the material realm to see the sword both as an artists tool or a deadly weapon is much the same when applied to words and the mental realms.  Taoists might interpret “stopping the sword” as overcoming the human mind, or the ego, to follow the true path of the Tao.  You don’t win against the mind by squashing it.  You merely learn to detach yourself from it by continuous effort to unify all as one.  When the ego acts up, you learn to observe it rather than involve yourself.  You learn to wait rather than be dragged to and fro by the ego’s ceaseless whims.  When someone crosses you, you do not immediately anger.  You become selfless.  In a sense it is in recognizing that others’ ego conflicts are not your own, and not for your ego to take on, no matter how much it desires to gain or destroy.  True Tao is true peace.  True peace comes from the inside — as what is inside is always reflected on the outside in equal measure.

In other words, when you have peace inside you will have no desire for a fight.  One that comes your way will be dissolved into the nothingness of nondesire.  It will not be of use to you to harm another, be it with action or with words, because these acts of violence only remove you from peace.

Training is a process of dissolving the ego.  Internal training is allowing the All of the Universe to come in and be one with the individual.  You can’t experience All if your ego is interfering.  It’s impossible.  So instead, you must let go.  Forget about pain, forget about being better, forget about winning, forget about what happened before, forget about letting go, forget everything.

Sifu says that if you follow the path, your actions will be naturally virtuous because you will not want to disturb the delicate balance of being one, once you have experienced it.  Inner peace is easy to the Taoist, who does nothing but allow himself to be as he is in truth.

My Sifu’s Sifu

If the editing were less tripped out this would be better, but it’s the best I can dig up on the interwebs :)  Look at how he moves — damn!

Ba Gua

My favorite part is the expression on the students face when the master breaks the pole right off the base.

Spiritual training, further development and depth

The past two months have been revealing.  It is worth reflecting.

But first I must say, to describe the changes is quite hard.  The further I go down the path of the internal, the more difficult it is to speak of it and the less, oddly, I feel the urge.  There are a few reasons for this…

The most obvious reason is that when you work in subtler realms, even those open to energy have difficulty grasping it if they themselves have not spent much time there.  In Western society, we are taught to shut off our intuitive sense of the world and people throughout history have been routinely shunned or destroyed for any practice or “witchcraft” encouraging energetic work.

But more than this, the work is deeply personal.  I have recently written at length about my health history on this blog.  At the time of my writing, I had struck only the tip of the iceberg.  What has occurred since has been fantastic and complex.  I feel like ME again, and not just like me, I feel free of all the drama that used to keep me down.  I feel capable of appraising reality with consciousness.  Taking mindful action and intentional non action.  And muddling through one of my own struggles which is to be impeccable with my word.  I feel a new sense of control — I do not get thrown so easily by others emotional states, and have a much higher level of situation management as a direct result.  Nothing changed outside me, but inside I am less afraid and I am more grounded.

There is a level you get to in any aspect of martial training, when you start to become empowered, and you realize that what you have is not just a silly play thing, but a real and even dangerous force.  This is usually the point at which practitioners either get drunk on the feeling and squander it recklessly, or start to become more introverted.  There are extremely practical reasons why spiritual, emotional/mental and physical discipline are tantamount and must be developed simultaneously.  The main of these is for the pure health of the practitioner.  A physically powerful person with no emotional grounding is reckless.  A spiritually powerful person with no connection to the physical is aimless.  The mentally astute will become too wrapped up in their intellect and the emotionally driven, their feelings — both will cause physical imbalance and spiritual blockage.  On a basic level, this causes pain.  Failure to develop an inner eye is a failure to understand your body and listen to its messages.  Sa Bom Nim always taught that you should see yourself from the inside, and recognize your imbalances and correct your mistakes from that place rather than say, looking in a mirror or having someone tell you.  This means not only being able to see yourself externally in terms of movement (is my foot in the right place?), but also internally (am I balanced?  am I aligned correctly?), and ultimately spiritually (where am I blocking or holding energy?  how am I inhabiting space?)  This is why many masters make few corrections.  Knowing when to guide and when to let go and let the student self guide is important on that end.

But there is another benefit to learning the skill of self knowledge and internal vision, and it is that your intuition automatically increases.  In martial arts training, this is obviously useful in fighting, as you sense more easily the moves of your opponent.  In the real world, it is no different.

I can speak to this as I have always had a very good sense of what it is to be inside my body, physically, but had a very poor sense of myself in my surrounding space, particularly in relation to others.  My colleagues can attest that I have very good form and can easily explain to others how they should feel inside their bodies when practicing techniques.  The physical discipline has always been very natural to me, almost effortless.  But for years, I sucked at sparring.  Positively sucked.  This is because I couldn’t get my mind to move out of the way so my intuition could come in.  I didn’t trust myself, so my willpower and physical sense overpowered EVERYTHING.  I could do every exercise with half the effort of others around me and even when struggling could defeat all with my unrelenting diligence.  But when it came time to break out of the structure and flow, I didn’t know how to react.  When plans changed or the structure was altered, I lost my footing.  It seemed all my training was for nothing!

In life, I struggled constantly with bad timing.  I was stunned in conflict, depressed by ignored hunches, and mowed over by anyone who sensed this weakness.  It was many years into my training when my real life finally beat my mind into submission and suddenly my sparring improved.  Having no choice but to follow pure intuition was the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me.  Here is why:

I became, am becoming, completely self empowered.

Spiritual work is the most important work of training, and it is arguable that all work we do as martial artists is spiritual.  The discipline is spiritual.  The physical challenge is spiritual.  The emotional control is spiritual.  Each offers deeper benefit to the betterment of your person through enforced adversity.  However, this is only the most superficial level of spiritual training as the real work begins only when you are capable of hearing your intuitive voice, and willing to follow through on its advice.  There lie the real challenges, as many intuitive insights defy social expectations and norms.  The struggle to stay “true to yourself” is one we are all well acquainted with, but how many actually follow their truth in practice?  Qi gong, internal martial arts, meditation — all of this work is a manner of learning to inhabit yourself spiritually.  I think of it is as me following the path to the version of me I want to be at my highest and best — not through force, but through allowance.  On some level, it is a manner of living fearlessly.  I’ve done a LOT of strange things in the past year that my rational mind would have never considered reasonable, but following mystic happenstance has freed me.  There are curious rewards for following your intuition that are often unexpected, and once you follow it enough you start to see negative repercussions that arise when you go against it.  The more I listened and trusted, the smoother the ride, even when following my “gut” meant doing or facing something unpleasant, sad, difficult, or the opposite of what I was inclined to do.  On a personal level this has lead to considerable change in lifestyle and an overhaul of long standing habits.  This process of spiritual growth has been both healing and empowering, and aside from feeling better, happier, and more relaxed — knowing myself in this way has given me first-hand evidence that I am a person whose sense of the world is worth trusting.  Practicing self trust, above all other things, has enabled me to navigate people and forces that wish to harm me in a way that is unprecedented in my life.

This is true internal vision and the key component to sharpening all senses.  Higher states of awareness see much more clearly the fumbles of a lesser attacker and the looming danger of those too great.  I spend a great deal less time worrying about what other people think.  What they do reflects them, not me, and if my self preservation means walking away and having someone throw a temper tantrum over it, so be it.  It’s not worth the energy on my part.  And what freedom it is to be released from everyone else’s drama!

I know that there are many schools that still write off spiritual and “energy” work as some new age woo woo bullshit.  But I wish to emphasize here that you don’t need to be special or smart or a kook to use internal work to benefit your life.  That is the beauty of it!  It is the most practical, reasonable, and intelligent work we can do.  And there are no drawbacks!  For myself, I am supremely blessed for my good fortune to land me here:  Exactly where I need to be.

56

Those who know do not talk.
Those who talk do not know.

Keep your mouth closed.
Guard your senses.
Temper your sharpness.
Simplify your problems.
Mask your brightness.
Be at one with the dust of the earth.
This is primal union.

He who has achieved this state
Is unconcerned with friends and enemies,
With good and harm, with honour and disgrace.
This therefore is the highest state of man.

Tao Te Ching, 56.

The woes of overachieving Yang

The other day someone pointed out that I was half out of my body. The only half that was filled was my yang side, and the energetic body was occupying space to my right. They are not the first to tell me recently that my left side appears weak, they were just the first to recognize why. Ever since they pointed this out, I can feel the pull of this imbalance. A void on the left, heat on my right.

I have been outside of myself for some time, that is why I have been seeking. Now with a more concrete (if you can call it that) sense of my absence, I feel more urgent, more yang. What can I do? Do do do do do… doing doing doing.

There is one question that has been troubling me lately. For ten years I practiced a martial art that is considered an internal/external hard/soft style. Now, for a time, I am practicing internal martial arts only. At first, it was easy. I had no problem understanding the flow of qi, as I have been trained well enough to know about directing my energy. But lately, I’m blocked. I find it almost impossible to send my breath down to my lower dantien, I feel the energy stuck up in my chest and head and now to the right… and I feel all of the symptoms related to qi congestion and stagnation. I’ve had outbreaks on my skin (lung and liver), I’ve been a hot head. I feel frustrated and aggressive. I feel like I have an insane amount of energy but it’s shooting off in every direction, not coming inside, and it is not serving me. This is all confusing to me. My friends from class have suggested that this is just a natural and fairly normal phase in qi cultivation — old injuries may be aggravated and old emotional patterns may rise. But I have never had such a hard time breathing, and though anger is not a stranger, I have not felt so hot in a long time.

What confuses me the most is that my old training, which was very rigorous and physical, often addressed this anger and this heat such that it allowed me to feel balanced and whole afterward. We did a very specific type of breathing and used our voices in such a way that my throat never felt strained and my breath came very naturally from the lower dantien, as it is supposed to. It is true that I had to learn the “yin” aspects much later, but I never before felt that my yin was so lacking. If anything, I’ve been embracing my yin more than ever these past two or three years! I want to understand the inner alchemy of it. What was the nature of my Soo Bahk Do training? Did training in such a rigorous discipline help me burn away my fire nature so that I can emerge from it more balanced? Was this what my Tao instructor terms as “fire” training and now I am experiencing “water” training for the first time and finding I knew less than I thought?

I have been considering some things about this. Sifu says that water training will allow for the eternal flow of energy, because it is the nature of water to seem soft but also have the flowing capability of a river to sweep away. Or a Tsunami, to destroy. He says that fire cultivation will always burn out eventually, it is not sustainable, and that is why learning to cultivate water energy is important. As I have mentioned before, according to the Tao philosophy the upper half of the body is considered the “fire” element and the lower “water” and the idea of Tai Chi training is to place the fire below the water (the breath to the lower dantien) to create “steam” which is qi. If you do not consciously try to guide these elements they will naturally move apart which is what creates a lot of imbalances, particularly in Western culture where the upper chakras are venerated and the lower (instincts, survival, sexuality, “gut” knowing) are ignored or repressed.

It’s gotten me thinking about Soo Bahk. When I first came to Tai Chi, I was fresh off the boat from a month of Soo Bahk training with Choi Sa Bom Nim and had just got back in the swing of it before my move. I remember the first few classes made me feel so delicious and powerful. Even though we did not practice stretching, I felt limber. Even though we did not do a hard workout, I felt as if I had a lot of strength. For the first several months I lived in Asheville, I felt clean and clear! But now all of this weird stuff is cropping up, and I wonder if what I perceived as healing was just a restorative period, a time of rest that allowed me only peace enough to be a functional human again, and now I’m encountering the truly difficult task of reinhabiting a body I’ve been a stranger to for years.

Was it fire training? I don’t know. But I would be willing to say that I did burn out all of my Yang while I was in Boston. Soo Bahk Do usually made me feel energized when I had the energy to face the practice, but by the end it did not sustain me. My body started to break down under all of the stress and pressure of the circumstances of my life there and I ceased to be able to tolerate the rigor. I remember going to Master Choi’s classes and feeling like I just didn’t care anymore — Don’t get me wrong, I was there because I wanted to train, but the act of getting there was so dreadfully difficult that it mattered little to bother with the discipline, or… to show up on time. I started to practice yoga in Boston and initially found it really frustrating because it lacked the rigor and athleticism I was used to, but this all changed, ironically, when I ended up in a “Yin” yoga class for the first time and had several powerful experiences that totally changed my perspective on what physical practice can be. It helped me see with more depth than was possible before that the physical body has a direct connection to our mental/emotional well being, as well as understand for the first time the value of sitting still and being silent. After moving to Asheville, I was fully invested in internal practices and felt many obstacles that had plagued me in recent times evolve and lift. It wasn’t hard for me to meditate or go to yoga and feel all good natured afterward. But then I just hit this wall. I suddenly felt good again. For a fleeting moment, I felt like ME again! I started to do my Soo Bahk Do at home from time to time, but was frustrated to find I was unable to keep a regular practice. I started to feel annoyed with yoga and that it wasn’t structured enough for me, and it wasn’t disciplined enough. I stopped being able to concentrate in class as well. I started to feel like I was floating around in nothing nothing land and that everything was spiraling out of control. All of my anxieties about my lack of discipline came to rise again and so, all the distractions that keep me from doing my work. I attempted to make rigorous guidelines for myself to achieve what I wanted like some rebellion against this Southern town’s overly relaxed way, for naught. By then it became apparent that all of the spiritual work I had done up until that point was completely superficial. All I had got through were the recent ails, and these were only symptoms of the larger issues at play in my life. The stuff that is really hard for me has yet to be tackled — my addictions, my lifelong patterns, and all of the physical and emotional pain that is associated with those things. The more I start to understand what it is I’m driven to do in this life, the more I see how important it is for me to overcome these issues, as they are the very struggles which prevent me from just going ahead and doing as I will. These difficulties are, in fact, holding me back from what I want and have been built, slow and steady, over the course of years.

So I wonder now if I had actually been entirely out of my body at the end of my time in Boston. Maybe I had been out of my body the whole time, and Soo Bahk Do was one of the few times where I came back to myself, until finally I couldn’t even come back there. This past year was no doubt a period where I felt like a sick child in bed. What I surrendered, I was absolved of. When I surrendered, I was taken care of. Then maybe getting better, returning to my being, I didn’t need to be cared for anymore so I immediately jumped at my first inclination to do the things my depression and disassociation prevented me from accomplishing. The trouble here is that this is my old way of being — the do, do, do — that got me in trouble in the first place. And doing constantly is not getting me anywhere. I haven’t yet understood how to surrender my defenses to my own being, how to let go in front of myself. It’s like… I have a memory of what it felt like to be a whole person, but no understanding of why I am not that way currently, or how to be that way again. I keep thinking I need to go back to these things that made me feel whole and right, like Soo Bahk. But in truth, I need to just let it go.

I need to let go of the idea that I was ever a cool person in some past mystical time. I need to let go of the 20 years I played the piano and the 10 years I did martial arts and the 5 years I lived in Boston and it all went to hell. I need to let go of my fear of getting older, and the fear that if I lose my training I’ll lose my body. I need to let go of my fear of becoming weak and fragile, and my concerns that I won’t progress ever again, and that I disappoint myself and everyone else by my mediocrity. This is not to say I need to give up, but holding onto these aspects of my past and my fears about the future are only impeding me now. There is divine order, I want to trust that the movement of my life is as it is, if not the way it is supposed to be, and that those things I fear releasing will return to me if I am meant to have them. I am not ready to go back to my Soo Bahk Do training right now, because I do not adequately understand something about it that’s really important. If I am to make a life of martial arts, it is pivotal that I fill in the gaps of this traditional training properly and that I understand fully. The paradoxical thing about it is that I must empty myself completely of the ten years of experience and accept the fact that I’ve lost certain things. There’s nothing I can do to change the course of the river, my life flows as it must, and sadly, for me, this has meant a lot of saying goodbye. Have I ever mentioned that the one thing I’m worst at is letting go?

Trusting in just being is something I haven’t been able to do for years. There is so much potential in my hands and I see others with less all around me making their lives happen, and I can’t seem to create any sense of my reality. It’s painful to see so much work “go to waste.” I have lived a life of constant drive and seen it amount to so little, but holding onto whatever small achievements there were in the present moment is not going to help me move forward. Yes, I was well-respected once in more than one world. Yes, I was the top of my class and I practiced every day. Yes, I once lead a structured, disciplined, focused life that seemed to have some meaning and felt as if it was going somewhere. …But that is not today. I will never get an answer to What For, especially not if I’m searching. The only way forward is to be, and to trust. Today I can safely say I’m not driving my life into a nonsensical hole, I am here for a reason and I have intentionally chosen the activities I am a part of — because I enjoy them, because they help me, and because they are a part of my path. That’s enough. There’s nothing more I can do but allow this path to take me where it means me to go.

So why is that so damn hard?

Impatience and fear. That’s all it comes down to. I thought discipline was about doing all these years, but now I see that it’s really about overcoming. And to overcome is to surrender.

And some philosophy.

My friends, there are many songs and many voices, yet all birds are of one nature.  In all the world and all the universe, there are not two natures nor three nor many, but only one.  Even so, what kind of a world have people created for themselves?  One of multiplicity, complexity, and confusion:  one of trouble, disunity, and decline, all due to the barren minds of undeveloped people who build thick walls of fear around themselves.  Many teachers and leaders aggravate this situation with narrow views that foster an even greater separation between people.  Their words express only their own stage of development and that of the people who follow them.  The true test of a teacher’s value is his ability to transcend time, place and circumstance while still relating to the world.   The Great One does not create a vision that would limit the potential of the future; instead, he teaches only the absolute way which creates no obstacles to further spiritual development.

-Hua-Ching Ni, The Uncharted Voyage Toward the Subtle Light

Just a rambly update-y post thing

I owe this blog more than few serious posts.  It is April and I’ve officially been in Asheville for four months.  Things are finally settling down and starting to almost make sense again.  I have been taking it fairly easy but I practice Tai Chi two times weekly now and yoga 1-3x weekly.  I say this is taking it easy because most of the work I do in these classes is internal and therefore not that “physical.”  It had been way too long since I had a good cardiovascular workout and because I happen to live in the south now, it was tank top and shorts weather, so I impulsively rode my bike to a yoga class at the free studio.  Google maps guessed it would be about a 30 minute bike ride.

Soooooooooo after climbing a few EPIC MOUNTAINS, getting lost and riding for about an hour, I jump immediately into this “Power Yoga” which is all core exercises and a lot of standing on one foot and trying not to knock over the person standing three inches on either side of you.  WTF have I gotten myself into?

The amazing thing about it though was that after I managed to stop huffing and puffing (I literally got off my bike after riding it uphill for 20 min and ran into this class, LOL.) I felt stronger than I have in at least a year.  I forgot what it was like to feel this strong!  Of course, if I had to do anything aside from pedal my legs and do some yoga poses I may have felt different but damn, I miss it.  A strong body makes life lighter.  Hard physical training immediately boosts.

The teacher in my yoga class said something really nice today.  ”This practice is dedication to your life.”

I believe that wholeheartedly.

We don’t train in physical or spiritual practices just for the hell of it, we do them because it is necessary for our vitality and well being.  Practice is giving yourself the love that you deserve.  Taking care of your body improves the quality of all things, and listening to its consciousness is no different than listening to a good friend.  Your life deserves your love and attention, give it that!  There is no reason to be afraid to care about your own happiness and health.

Deepening my internal practice (which has been a very natural process for me, starting from when I first wrote the post on this blog about “Po Wol”) has been and continues to be a fantastic journey into really understanding myself, the human body, and martial arts.  I no longer suffer the need to make delineation between this or that technique, style.  The principles are the same between all disciplines, yogic, martial, and beyond.  I am extremely grateful for my past ten years of training with people who were so aware of the martial path so that I am able to take this new step in my own.  I’ve found something really amazing here, and maybe it’s why I’m here.  With intention, physical work heals and balances.  I wish to understand more, so I can give more.  Learn alignment, anatomy, philosophy.  These are things I am only touching on the surface.

There is much in my life that remains formless for the time.  This will change, and one day I’ll know what direction to drive the next cycle.  But I am happy with where I am.  I feel my vitality returning.

I will have to return to share more in depth.  Hope everyone is well up north and otherwise.

For lower back

We did a really awesome and simple pose in yoga the other day that totally helped my lower back (which has been sore lately from extended periods standing — might need new shoes).  Basically you lay down on your back, and raise your legs 90 degrees.  Scooch your butt up against a wall so your legs are resting on the wall and lay that way for five minutes or so.  If you have any lower back tension, this works some serious magic.  Amazingly easy and simple… but of course… I spent ten years doing physical exercise before it was ever presented to me.

I have a piece coming up about hip tension (somewhat related to lower back tension).  It is crazy how it can take so many years (and mistakes) to understand the most basic concepts.  I hope to start sharing these realizations with you more and more.  Maybe if I do, you won’t have to spend the years searching that I did.  Maybe you will anyway.

All I can say is that I hope one day I know enough that people take me seriously enough to benefit from the knowledge I’ve gained and will continue to work with, adapt, and try to understand.  Nobody needs to be in pain if they don’t want to be.  One day, I hope this is a given.

Women’s Self Defense

I have only had to use martial arts twice in my life.  The situation was the same both times.

The first time I was in my neighborhood, hanging out with my roommate at a local bar.  They were having some kind of techno house night, her friend was DJing, and she invited me along.  It was a hot summer night, and we went outside for a breather.  A man walked up to us and made a screwball attempt at hitting on us and my friend and I rejected him straight up, cold-hearted.

He asked us what the terrible music was and why we were dancing to it.  ”Because we like it.”  He asked if we would dance with him.  We said no.  He kept insisting and insisting.  My friend went inside and I soon followed.

He decided to come inside, in spite of how he had earlier complained about the music and the club and everything else wrong with the place.  He found me and asked to dance with me.  I said no, and we moved away from him.  We crossed paths several times throughout the night and each time he put his hands on my body and would continue to ask me questions, which I continued to kindly, but firmly, reject.  He didn’t give up.  He came to me one last time and touched my back.  I grabbed his wrist and squeezed it hard.

“If you touch me again, I will punch you in the face.”

And he left me alone for the rest of the night.  Once he looked at me and made a face to imply that I was frigid.  He’d moved on to some other woman who had no interest.  I left the bar shortly after, having lost my appetite for dancing.

The second was yesterday night.

Ironically, my friend and I had been discussing how to deal with what seem to be old South terms of “endearment” for women.  Why is it that men come into my workplace and call me “sweetie” and “darling?”  We both agreed that it felt demeaning and at times dehumanizing.  There is a level of hospitality to it, which I appreciate and has not bothered me for the most part.  But, at other times, these terms cross a line for me that I never knew existed.  Suddenly, I’m in this environment where I’m constantly being sexualized by other people.  Where I’m put into the “sweetie” category.  Aren’t I a harmless bunny rabbit?  A kind of zoo animal.

One of our companions got up to buy another drink and we are having a pretty involved conversation when out of the blue, some drunk guy walks up and asks if he can join.

He asks like this:  ”Hey, would you two want to talk to me?  I want to talk to you.  Can we talk?  Can I sit down and talk to you?”

“Sure.”

“Can I sit there?”

“No, our friend is sitting there.”

“He’s not here now.  Why can’t I just sit there?”

“Maybe you can sit down if you pull up a chair.”

And so he does.  He sits down.  And then launches into this bizarre tirade about how he is really a fun person, he’s really cool.  He’s fun.  Right?  He’s super fun!  People like him!  And don’t you guys want to hear some jokes?  He’s good at telling jokes.  He’s a funny person.  And then he looks at my friend, who is curled up barefoot on the couch, relaxing with her drink, and acknowledges her for the first time.

“Look at you, you look so bored.  You think I’m boring.  You guys are real assholes, you think I’m boring.”

“We aren’t bored.  We don’t think you’re boring.”

“Look at you, sitting there.  You look so bored.  You guys are like too cool for school.  You think you’re cooler than me, I get it.  Here I am, trying to crack all of the jokes and be funny and you just don’t even smile.”

The guy’s friend joins the conversation.  He swoops down and sits on the other side of us, and it becomes clear there’s an inquisition going on.  Except… a really lame one.  Dude number 2 apologizes on behalf of his a-hole friend before turning to me and saying, “Hey, I feel like I shouldn’t be saying this or something, I don’t know… but there were some real faggots at the bar down the street.  They must have been gay as the hills or something.  Is there a bar around here where there aren’t any faggots?”  The noise of the hateful words feels suddenly disruptive.  I consider telling him I’m gay just for the shock value.  I look between both of them and realize we are surrounded by this banal, drunken chatter and I don’t know how it happened.

Unsure of how to respond, I tune in to my friend who has gotten nowhere talking to Drunk Asshole #1 and is deciding it’s time to go.  I grab my bag and follow suit.  There is a flurry behind me of, “Oh, ok.  You’re just going to leave.  Oh yeah, just leave.  That’s great.”  And I felt someone slap my ass.

I turn around and smack the dude upside the head.  Backhand.  Open handed.  Not nearly as hard as I should or could have.

“Don’t fucking TOUCH me.”

He seemed stunned, though I’m not sure.  He clearly had no idea he was touching a woman who has been a martial artist for ten years.  After the knee jerk reaction to hit him, I had wanted to strike a second time, but though he deserved to be knocked out of his chair (how easy it would be!), it seemed an abuse of power.  He was obviously completely helpless. I walked away.

The bartender was alarmed.  He asked what was up, and quietly expelled the man in question.  The other people at the bar congratulated me.  A woman thanked me.  The man walked out like a screaming, dramatic, gigantic baby and when I saw him on the sidewalk, he looked like a stunned toddler.

I had no feeling toward him but contempt and pity.

…

The sad thing is, these are not the only times I have endured sexual violence.  These events were extreme circumstances with strangers.  They were very minor and easy to handle.  Easy to walk away from.

But what about when someone talks to you inappropriately at work?  Or touches you when you don’t want to be touched, in ways you’re not really cool with being touched?

Or when somebody you think is your friend concludes that your friendliness has been leading them on and that it’s your job to pay it forward?  Would they rather talk to you about this or suffocate you with guilt?

What about when someone kisses you and you don’t really want to kiss them again and they tell you you’re a prude and that something is wrong with you and it’s just kissing?  Just!  Or how about when you’re in bed with someone and you think it’s time to stop and they beg and say you’re a bitch?  Or when you’ve said no and they do it anyway?  And as you are pressing your hands to their chest to get them off of you, because you are too suffocated to use your words to speak, they don’t notice and they don’t care, they can’t tell that they’re hurting you!

How about when they insult your body, or when they are too complimentary?  Maybe you said, Hey, you’re really cool and all but I’m not interested, and they won’t stop trying to tell you all the things they want to do to you, when those things were never on the table in the first place.  Maybe you partied too hard and slept next to male company who found his hands between your legs.  Prying his fingers away doesn’t take away the fact that it happened, or that now your mood is altered and your headspace is clouded.  Who is safe in this world?

No.  I’ve not been very good about standing up for myself in these situations.  I’ve let things happen to me that I could have easily prevented if I’d just said something.  Or if I’d been strong enough in myself to leave, or ask them to leave.  Some of these people were my friends.  Some apologized when they realized they’d crossed a line.  Some truly blamed me.  I mostly blamed myself.

Fortunately, women don’t encounter the same kind of violence that men tend to.  Many men I know got into martial arts because they got beat up, or were bullied, or were considered weak.  Women who study martial arts often have much different reasons for training.  Sometimes it is self defense related, but not always.  And sadly, what is often considered “women’s self defense” is often limited to physical measures, or defense against extremely violent situations.  A man in a dark alley, with a gun.

This is all well and good, but to pretend that we’re all walking around in a nervous haze, constantly vulnerable to the extremely unlikely and rare street attack is to effectively ignore the very real and subtle violence women endure day after day by men they know and are close to.  Martial arts serve to empower people, especially women, and it is tantamount that issues of self esteem and self awareness are explicitly addressed.  Sexual boundaries are not black and white and depend heavily on the situation, the people involved, and the relationship between them.  As women we are surrounded by a “Can you blame him?” attitude.  As if you can’t really blame a man for having no self control what-so-ever when you wear that skimpy dress.  Or having no self control what-so-ever when you’re wearing a gigantic flannel shirt and baggy jeans.  Or not being able to stop himself from trying to jam his dick in your face when you told him you weren’t really into this anymore.  And men, aside from being territorial on the whole, are blithely oblivious to how oppressive it is to say, go out dancing at most clubs with the seventeen or so boners coming at you from every direction.  Or to be a waitress and get handed numbers and awkward proposals as customers greedily stare at your tits.  Good luck trying to get a tip out of those jerk-offs.

I have hesitated to write on this topic for some time.  In part, I was afraid and ashamed to talk about it.  I thought that people I know would be offended or feel uncomfortable.  But it is important for me to talk about this because I am not alone.  Many women I know have dealt with sexual violence either subtly or directly.  A good handful have been raped, sometimes violently and repeatedly.  Often by boyfriends or other people that are close.  Women are afraid to talk about these issues because even though there seems to be support, they are often written off or brushed aside.  ”She was asking for it.  She’s exagerrating.”  Some women don’t even regard the violence at all because they have been so conditioned to believe that the feminist agenda is a crock and that they cannot or should not stand up for themselves.  Others simply blame themselves, like I did, for what they were unable to stop.  They think, “Maybe I was leading him on” or “Maybe I am supposed to do that.”

Most college campuses will not prosecute date rape (“he said, she said”) and the social pressure to not be That Girl can be extreme resulting in alienation from her so-called friends, and a tarnished reputation to strangers.  The irony is so sweet — that a woman must apologize for being raped while her rapist continues life-as-usual.  Women and girls are not adequately prepared to deal with truly difficult sexual situations.  We are encouraged from a young age to be acquiescent, to shave off all of our body hair, and appear soft.  Women are told they are weaker than men and that they must be careful and that they can’t lift things, or that they shouldn’t live alone, and that they can’t walk alone and even that they need a husband in order to live any semblance of a normal life.  To have strong opinions and claim you are a feminist are warning signs that you are a butch and a bitch.  Beyond that, feminine sexuality in today’s culture has now been distorted and misrepresented as, “Have sex like a man.  Demonstrate sexual autonomy.  BE sexual.”  Sex is not regarded as valuable and as a result the spirit-defeating events which often occur are disregarded by women themselves as mere episodes.  Nothing to worry about!  If we were men, we wouldn’t worry, right?

As a female martial artist, how many times in my life have I been told that “no matter how much martial arts training I have, I’ll never be able to ‘win’ a fight against a man?”  I can’t count.  I went to tournaments, in Soo Bahk Do, where certain masters told me to my face I could not compete with the men in a no-contact sparring division, because I was a woman.  This master went out of his way to make it known to me that he felt I could not “handle it” and put me in divisions against prior planning with younger and lower ranked females instead of in the division where I belonged with people of my relative skill level.  With much respect to these women, I must say for myself it was belittling and insulting.  It lowered my morale, and needlessly.

Everyone I have trained under has believed in me as a martial artist as strongly as any other student.  They have never been afraid to put me with the biggest people in the class, and sometimes choose to because they know I -can- handle it.  I am a senior ranked female martial artist — I spend day after day after day training with men.  There are times in my life when I have been able to outrun, out-kick, out-strength all of them.  This is because of my own hard work, and because my teachers taught me to be self empowered — they set a high standard and they said, “Everybody get here.”  Not just the special or gifted students, or the big dudes or the jock-types.  Everybody.  Training IS empowerment.  Its purpose is completely individual, that’s why it’s practical.  Otherwise, it would be a shallow and limited practice only a few extra-special and extra-strong people could do.  There is no purpose in this, and just as I believe that every person who comes into a martial arts studio can be empowered through their training, I believe every woman (and every man) can be empowered in their lives.

Martial arts gave me wonderful self confidence that if I ever had to use my body to protect myself, I could.  I recognize the obvious realities of weapons and weight, but I trust I could preserve my life in an extreme circumstance, if nothing else.  Most of my instructors have themselves been smaller and “weaker” (Ha!  though I can hardly use that term for either of them) and have shown me that size doesn’t matter as a martial artist, skill does, sharp instincts do.  An ability to thoughtfully draw from the resources and strengths that you have, while working to fill in the weaknesses.  This is true in physical self defense as it is in spiritual self defense.  It took some really messed up years of my life for me to understand and develop spiritual self defense.  Too long, in my opinion.

When someone talks down to you, and you allow it, it depletes your energy.  When someone touches you when you don’t want them to, and you don’t say anything, it depletes your energy.  When you disassociate from your sexual experiences because you don’t really want to be there, it destroys the self.  Any lowering of your energetic vibration lowers your defenses and leaves you open and susceptible to manipulation.  Please forgive me for using abstract terms, but whatever way it can be understood it must be understood.  Your body is completely yours.  Your mind is completely yours.  They are not separate and they have a voice.  Standing up for yourself is your right, and having control of your body and your mind is your right.  No person is obligated to do anything they don’t want to do, no matter how “enticing” the circumstance.  No person is obligated to tolerate sexual innuendos and harassment to “keep the peace.”  Sexual harassment hurts you.  This sounds obvious, but it is in fact really confusing, complex, and difficult to understand when it is happening — particularly in professional situations, particularly if it is coming from someone you consider a friend.  It’s a practice to be yourself and speak your mind.  It’s a practice to trust your own intuition and instincts to appraise a situation.  It’s risky, it’s scary.  But over time, it makes us stronger.

Women are powerful.  We as women are powerful.  Men are afraid of us and they need to realize who they are dealing with when they attempt to put women in compromised situations.  A person, with autonomy, and the ability to fight back.  A person who WILL fight back.  Educate those who are unaware of themselves and their actions.  Maybe they will think twice in the future.  Think of it as a service to humanity.  Think of it as raising consciousness.  Other women will thank you.

Self defense isn’t just getting away from the dude in that dark alley, it’s establishing yourself as someone who has self respect and will not allow others to disrespect them.  It’s okay to have boundaries.  It’s okay to take up space.  It’s okay to walk away.  It’s okay to speak your mind.  There is no place for fear in this world.  The truth will always keep you safe.