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In General
A Life's Kiai
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#38
 09-27-2003 09:54 AM |
Well, last week --- I forsee --- will most likely be my last full week of training in a while, for this week my Wednesday and Thursday nights were occupied (and Wednesdays will be in future with volunteer ESL teaching) not on the mats as per usual but in a manner that I daresay was just as rewarding and no less befitting someone seeking a martial way.
Welcoming a New Aikidoka into the World...
Wednesday evening, Dave and I visited with some close friends and their newborn daughter. Despite the new parents' exhaustion, they still invited us over, and we weren't about to shun the opportunity to give them our support and meet baby Dayna.
Now, babies are indeed fascinating creatures --- though they are not yet able to communicate with us using the kind of verbal language we are accustomed to, it's not for lack of trying in the least.  They are perfectly aware of their own self-interests and do not hesitate for one moment to attempt expressing these needs to you, and wholeheartedly so! Our friend the new father told us of how baby Dayna would get so upset about something completely unbeknownst to him, screaming at the top of her tiny lungs to either be fed, burped or changed --- all her limbs and digits splayed out in rage. And so little Dayna, it seems, already has very little trouble sharing her martial spirit and kiai with the world!
"For Whom You Fight..."
As my friends and I walked down our inner city streets Thursday night chanting and yelling at the top of our lungs with hundreds of other girls and women during our city's annual "Take Back the Night" rally and march --- as we heard tales of and protested violence against women until both our hearts and throats were made raw by screaming --- my memory could not help but drift back to the night before. Cradling little Dayna, who had just come into this world, in my arms as she slept peacefully oblivious to anything else; my friend, her mother sighing wearily, looking at her first child and only half-facetiously saying, "When Dayna cries, I wonder if she's complaining, 'What kind of a world have you brought me into, mommy!'"
Baby Dayna, sleeping without a care in the world, who knows not the agonies and abuse that other girls and women have suffered and continue to suffer --- let us hope that she never has to experience this for herself. Baby Dayna, screaming from her very core to express her needs and who knows neither suppression, intimidation nor fear --- let us hope that she never has to know the pain of submission and silence.
We ourselves cannot afford to be silent. We cannot afford to ignore what is going on all around us and we cannot help but be concerned for the world we will be leaving to future generations. Our own kiai and projections of our martial spirit should not end with our practice, to be dusted off and used only for when we have stepped onto the mats, then to be packed away like a worn dogi when we leave them. I do not believe that this is what O Sensei intended when he said that Aikido was to be a way to bring peace and harmony to the world. No --- we should kiai with our very existence, scream with our whole being, and shatter the stifling silence with our martial spirit in all that we do.
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