A few weeks ago, I earned my first degree black belt in Taekwondo. The fact that I practice a martial art still surprises even my closest friends ... and might surprise you if you met me. I’m a smallish, smiley, peacenik sort of person who, if I reached out my hand to touch you, would be more likely to straighten your collar than deliver a sudo chop to your jugular vein. So, why am I studying a martial art – literally, an art of war?
Well, I began learning Taekwondo right after 9/11. I felt then (as I do now) that mostly, people make war because they don’t understand – or empathize with – those they perceive to be different. So, instead of clutching my head and muttering “Why do they hate us?” I set out to push through some personal barriers, to face my fears of the masculine world of war. Taekwondo – which translates as “the way of fist and foot” – was as far from my comfort zone as I could imagine.
After all, my sweet husband and our neutered dog notwithstanding, my waking hours revolve around females, from my young daughters and their girlfriends to the women who are my colleagues and friends. We speak the same language, catch the same cultural references, support one another plenty and challenge one another not enough, probably. So, it was a shock to immerse myself in the sweat-soaked competitive world of the young men who mostly fill my Taekwondo classes.
Even after four and a half years of training, these martial motions – the high sweeping kicks and striking postures – like yoga on testosterone – feel strange in my body. So, I look forward to the warm up and cool-down parts of class, when I can just hang out on the mats and talk with these guys while we groaningly stretch our bodies. Like any traveler in a new land, I’ve had to learn new vocabulary, from the names of the slasher movies some of them adore (thumbs up for Saw 2), to names of body parts, like “‘nads” (a place not to kick when sparring). But I’ve learned that I already share plenty with these young men, whose faces look like the soldiers on any side of any war. No longer newspaper ciphers to me, they, like me, are just people trying to improve themselves, who love Pink Floyd and Monty Python, and who harbor the same anxieties about how others see us – as punk teenagers or just another middle-aged mom – versus how we see ourselves.
My shift in perspective has come not from the inside out, as we often imagine change happens, somewhere deep in our core, but from the outside in. Learning to move my body in a new way has made me a different kind of person – stronger, more flexible, with a longer reach. That corny song, “Whistle a Happy Tune,” is right; whistle when you feel afraid – go through the motions of bravery – and pretty soon you are brave. We become the moves we make, even if those moves feel strange the first thousand times we make them.
I suppose I also hope there’s some cultural exchange going on as I cross this perceived barrier between the liberal arts and the martial arts. The other day, I was startled to hear someone refer to my biceps as “guns”: “Hey, Lidinsky, nice guns!” I was flattered ... and then uneasy. Why do we equate strength with violence? I took a chance and countered, “Why not call ‘em ‘hugs’?” After all, my strength makes me a better support to those I love in endless ways. What does peaceful power look like?
The requirement I most feared in the black-belt test was board-breaking. It’s a standard way to test focus and technique, but it’s terribly counter-intuitive. Why deliberately strike a solid object? We know it will hurt. But like most barriers, it’s only painful when we fail to break them, not when we do. “Think through the board,” the Master intoned. But in my disastrous practice sessions I smacked the freshly sawed planks again and again, unable to envision the path through to the other side.
At the test itself, though, I was buzzing with my classmates’ energy, and the breaks with my feet satisfyingly cracked through the wood, showering splinters on my toes. I faced the final challenge – breaking two boards with one hand technique – with an unfamiliar calm. The Master held the boards in front of him, and for the first time, my palm strike drove through the wood cleanly enough for my open hand to end up resting on the Master’s chest.
I left it there just long enough to catch, to my surprise, the flutter of his heart.
It’s no longer a paradox to me to see an art of war as a path to peace. I ain’t gonna study war no more. I’m studying the way of the fist, and the foot, and the heart.