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Old 10-15-2002, 11:54 AM   #28
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hello again, anonymous coward here,

thanks to all for your insights, i hope they keep coming.

yes, at first i did think that sensei keeping this student was an exercise in patience for the rest of the dojo. insert parable about the shepherd who spent almost all his time on the one wayward lamb instead of the rest of his flock.

and even normally kind people could have something going on in their lives that causes hit to shappen. but when you see injuries happen repeatedly, with no attitude to try to amend the process by which they are happening, not even any acknowledgement by the party-in-common that there even is a pattern that is screamingly obvious to even people at a seminar, who are from many different dojos, then there is a *big* problem.

and this to ponder: can you really beat this insensitivity out of somebody? it does offer some comic relief to contemplate big bruisin' aikidoka to come open a can of whoopass on this guy, see how he likes being treated that way, etc. but it probably just makes them even more entrenched in the habits of being a bully, they are even determined to never be vulnerable again, and need to prove it even more on the people around them once they've been whooped. so it will escalate. and i derive no satisfaction from seeing this person hurt; in fact, i've tried so hard in part because i think they are going to get irreparably hurt eventually and want to minimize that possibility.

this is what i think at this point:

i train in aikido because i do believe it holds the key of breaking us out of this vicious cycle of violence, internally and externally. we learn respect, blending, connection, and non-attachment to any technique or perspective. that's enough to handle 70-80% of the situations we deal with everyday. don't take things personally for the most part.

but that 20-30%...

sometimes if we don't take things to heart, we miss a chance to learn something very fundamental. this person at the heart of the conflict seems to have mastered not taking anything personally, not criticism from sensei, not feedback from others. he is disconnected because staying connected puts him in a ego-vulnerable position. it's these disconnected people that i don't know how to handle other than to out-wait, out-manuver, out-politic, over-power. this puts me back in the cycle of violence. i could apply machievelli and sun tzu and use politics to drive him from the dojo; that would be effective. it's a question of intent, how far should one be willing to go before simply leaving becomes the more ethical option?

giancarlo: i would be deeply interested in any insight you have into the "others" perspective. of course it's not clear cut. i've twisted my brain around for some time now trying to see this person's motives, (if for no other reason than to try to develop harmonious blends to them), and evaluate if there might be any noble ones there. other than arrogant egotism, including judging that one is qualified to push others to the point to injury, what other motives could you ascribe to this other person?
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