Meditation through martial arts

A house in the country with a white picket fence. Three beautiful children: Chewbacca, Frodo and Oprah Junior. The ability to fight wave after wave of nameless henchman without taking so much as a scratch, preferably with either "Kung Fu Fighting" or "You're the Best" playing in the background- a true American dream.

As disappointing as it may be, it is unlikely that anyone can simply wash cars or be bitten by a spider and suddenly be able to defeat the entire Cobra Kai, or even be semi-competent at self-defense. There are two clubs on campus involved in the self-defense business: a general martial arts club that offers an introduction and instruction in a variety of martial art fields, and the more specific Aikido club that I spent time with last week.

Aikido originates in Japan and is considered one of the more peaceful martial arts. It is concerned with defending and redirecting attacks and spirituality. Its concepts are focused on turning aside attacks and attackers as opposed to striking, with potential enlightenment as an added bonus.

Hoang Yo, president of the Aikido club, started practicing three years ago in order to learn how to defend himself. He eventually found the experience spiritualy and positively affecting other aspects of his life by approaching them from a new perspective. As opposed to being overwhelmed with problems, Hoang felt able to focus his energy on "redirecting" and "blending" with issues, finding them much easier to resolve.

The Aikido lesson that I was able to participate in had aspects that I imagine would be found in meditation, posture classes or Jedi training, had I ever done any of those things.     

Being an art from an Eastern philosophical background, an emphasis is placed on harnessing internal energy, or ki. Our instructor, John Boland a volunteer with over 20 years of Aikido experience, led us through breathing and visualization exercises in preparation for the class. As we became more, for lack of a better term, centered and focused on our breathing and form. We ran through several forms and movements as a group before using them against another person.

There were no bags to hit, no nunchucks or sparring, but there were simply parries and movements designed to help you defend against an attacker in order to gain control of the situation.

I learned about gaining wrist control, moving, parrying and taking the opponent to the floor with minimal effort, often with a hard to pronounce Japanese name attached to the movements.

While not completely inconsequential to the size of the attacker, it would certainly be a much more effective method than many other options if faced with a much larger opponent. This is simply due to Aikido's nature and philosophy which is using the attacker's own force against them.

A real life situation would obviously be quite different than the controlled slow strikes that I practiced against.It remains a much better option than one of my other go-to strategies for that situation; getting hit in the face.

The Eastern philosophies and defense-oriented nature may not be what everyone is looking for in a martial arts class, but Aikido provides an alternative way of learning self-defense. Classes are held Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7 p.m. in the martial arts room at the REC.