|
Deb,
Thanks. You're right. If it wasn't such a rinky-dink club training situation, these incidents probably wouldn't even show up on radar. I'll try to find a way to develop some empathy for his point of view, but it's very difficult. He seems to be in this petulant, tantrum-prone psychological space that is very difficult for me to relate to. Especially since, contrary to C's insinuations, any kind of anger, retribution, or antagonism is completely foreign to my way of being on the mat - which is why these behaviors seemed so out of the blue and had such a negative effect on me. To me, cranking on someone during practice to indulge some kind of resentment or sadism is an unthinkable pollution of what I'm doing. If I somehow got so angry and bent on getting into a physical altercation with a fellow student that I couldn't restrain myself, I would confront them off dojo property, and Aikido techniques would not be the first to be used. It seems hard to imagine that anything would ever go that far though... and I've had a guy physically threaten and taunt me on the mat before.
|