Making Sense of Violence

Rough Night

The night before my last day at the coffee shop, my coworkers and I headed out to celebrate. Soon I’d be leaving for Japan, and this would be my last hurrah.

We ate and drank our way through the night, eventually ending up at the far end of town by the beach. We left the last bar around midnight, and my two remaining co-workers decided to smoke a cigarette in the parking lot before heading home.

I was tired, so I sat down on a five-gallon bucket someone had left in a receded doorway. The girls had just lit up when a truck pulling out of an adjacent spot nearly backed into them.

My friends, two mouthy, petite girls, were not averse to confrontation. They promptly started cursing out the driver, telling him to watch where he was going. Almost immediately, he jumped out of the car and advanced on them. He was soon followed by his friend who had been sitting in the passenger seat.

The girls and the driver exchanged words, and then he started to get aggressive. He was nearly six feet tall and brawny, and probably weighed as much as the girls put together. After a few more back-and-forths he cocked his arm back like he was going to swing.

I saw that things were going south, so I stood up and called out, “Hey, hey, let’s calm down. Take it easy.” When the driver saw me, he turned from the girls and moved in on me. I was still thinking that he’d chill out and, though completely foolish in hindsight, sat back down on the bucket in the doorway. Bad idea.

I don’t even remember if I said anything before the first punch landed, but he hit me from above on the left side of my face four or five times in a row. I didn’t move. I didn’t cover up.

At that point, I heard the girls yelling for him to stop. He did, long enough to look their way, then returned to punching me. I finally started to cover up toward the end, but by then he seemed to have gotten out whatever aggression he had built up. In all, he probably landed ten punches to the left side of my face—he must have been a righty!

When the punches stopped, my first coherent thought was something like, “Wow, I can take a punch!” Yay me.

Things calmed down, and he walked back to where the others were. He exchanged a few more words with the girls, got in his car, and left. In an odd moment of clarity, I managed to memorize his plate number as they pulled out so I could report the incident to the police.

I was left with a fractured occipital lobe, and that night I couldn’t sleep because of the pain and my nose wouldn’t stop bleeding.

What Next?

You might think that this is the story of the big, traumatic event that led me to the martial arts, my origin story whereupon I decided never to be a victim again. It is not.

At the moment I was being repeatedly struck in the face, making no effort to protect myself, I was a black belt. I was practicing five days a week at the local aikido dojo, and would soon be moving to Japan to further my training.

Sitting on the floor of my room that night, an ice pack held to my face, I contemplated revenge. When the police were calling in the report they had given his address, and he lived less than a mile away. I thought of slashing his tires or maybe throwing a rock through his window. I’m not a vengeful person, so I eventually let that go.

Then, I thought, what if I just went to his house, rang his doorbell, and showed him what he did. In the sobriety of day, maybe he’d see my swollen face and realize the error of his ways. I hoped I could effect some sort of karmic reckoning by bringing his violence to light. I thought about it some more but had work at 5 am and was too exhausted to try.

In the end, I did nothing. I didn’t even press charges. I was leaving for Japan and didn’t want to get entangled in any legal stuff back in the States.

For years, the mere thought of that night triggered my adrenaline. Images would flash in my mind: me, sitting in that doorway, him, swinging from above.

Making Sense of Violence

Let’s be generous. Maybe my response—more accurately, my non-response—was smart. He was bigger and stronger than me, and he had a friend with him who might have joined in if I had tried something. It may be true that I could have ended up much worse off, but being helplessly punched in the face does not fit with my concept of martial arts or with the person I want to be.

I suspect anyone who has been violently assaulted has thought back and tried to imagine how they could have responded. Even today, two decades later, I can see him coming in from above with that roundhouse punch. I could have slipped in, gone straight for his centerline with a quick tsukiage or an uppercut. I could have stood up, shoved him back to establish a new position, and seen what I could do from there. I suppose there are an infinite number of possibilities, though ultimately I chose one.

Based on this event, you might conclude that Aikido is ineffective. The internet would be happy to agree. Clearly, my training had not prepared me to respond by fighting back and defending myself, though, in the end, I do not blame my training for the outcome of that night.

The thing is, I didn’t actually recognize that violence was imminent. Oddly enough, it barely registered that violence was occurring even while being punched in the face. There are stories of Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido, dodging bullets on the battlefield in WWI merely by sensing the enemy’s intent. Punch after punch, I was still uncertain if anything bad was really going to happen. There was a disconnect between what was going on and what I thought in my head, a gap that is obvious in hindsight.

Moving On

I did not quit Aikido that day, cursing my teachers for not preparing me for real danger. I did not think less of the art, criticizing the founder for forbidding competition or tests of martial skill. My teachers had provided me with the tools, and it was up to me to use them.

I have come to realize this: aikido doesn’t do itself. Merely participating in ‘The Art of Peace’ or other martial arts does not guarantee one will make it through life unscathed. It is not a talisman to ensure that nice people with good intentions will be spared from violence. It is a path, and it doesn’t walk itself.

Aikido is, as Ueshiba Sensei stressed, not passive. What this event made clear is that an outlook based solely on hopefulness and goodwill towards others alone is insufficient.

Thankfully, this painful experience in the back of an unlit parking lot changed my training. I do not go out and brawl, nor do I take out my shortcomings on my partners at the dojo. I continue to practice cooperatively, falling down when I am thrown and expecting the same from my partners. The difference is that now I view each of those interactions through a different lens.

Each time I execute a technique, I take notes on what works, how my partner responds, and how I could improve. When appropriate, I ask for a stronger attack and see, as honestly as I can, how effectively I can apply the technique.

Still, I understand that even when someone is being outright difficult on the mat, they are still not a fair representation of someone bent on doing harm. My practice does, however, provide me a means to refine myself, to build myself more fully into the person I want to be.

Looking back now, maybe the biggest takeaway is that that night didn’t scar me. I have continued my practice, and I don’t rehash my trauma on the mat or in my relationships. I train as well as I can and have no fear of what might occur the next time something bad happens. I don’t know what I would do, but I know that I have choices. There are no guarantees, but I know I’ll be OK.