God drew my attention to something this week that is perfectly fitting as a follow up to this blog's previous discussion of awareness.
One of the trademarks of ninjitsu in the form that we practice is its fundamental understanding of how real world violence happens and what the natural human response to that violence is. We consider how an enemy might attack, what our likely response to the attack will be, and how we can best prepare ourselves in light of this. We always make two basic presumptions: that there are multiple attackers and that any/all of them are armed with weapons. Multiple attackers with weapons significantly raise the stakes of any encounter and in a sense represent the worst case scenario. By training for the worst case scenario, we hope to gain the skills and the confidence to handle whatever kind of confrontation comes our way.
Weapons in particular introduce a phenomenon known as tunnel vision to the confrontation. Tunnel vision occurs when the enemy draws a weapon, such as a knife or a gun, and the defender's field of vision focuses in on the weapon to the point that they are not necessarily paying attention to the rest of their surroundings. When someone draws a deadly weapon, our natural reaction is to concentrate our attention- all of our attention- on the weapon and nothing else. The weapon itself becomes the threat as opposed to the situation as a whole. When tunnel vision occurs, we aren't looking around us. We aren't considering the possibility of other attackers. Instead of seeing the situation in its entirety- and possibly an easy escape route- all we can see is danger. All the techniques, all the training, all the things that we know to be effective have the potential to go out the window when we resort to panicked responses that leave us even more subect to danger.
Lately I've been seeing tunnel vision happen in my life, though thankfully not in the sense of attackers with deadly weapons. Rather the "threat" that I've seen myself focusing in on is my lack of income. I've been unemployed now for almost 3 months with little to no income coming in. When I left my old job (due to disagreement to business practices) I had planned ahead of time, saving enough money for a few months rent, bills, etc. I knew that things would be hard and that it would take me a while to find a job, but I had full confidence that God would provide a job for me. But as the weeks passed by, and then the months, I found that confidence edging away. My thoughts would continually come back to the fear that I wouldn't find a job, that I wouldn't be able to pay my rent, that somehow God wouldn't keep his promise to take care of me. And try as I might my mind would circle back to my bank account, to my expenses, and to Sallie Mae's impertinent emails. The threat of not having a dependable income bypassed all my other concerns and seemed the most imminent priority to deal with.
My tunnel vision got to the point where I couldn't even appreciate all of the amazing things that God is providing for me or blessing me with in other areas of my life. Instead of seeing how my free time is enabling me to support and be there for my friends, I would feel guilty that I wasn't doing something "more meaningful" than blessing other people. Instead of recognizing my volunteering hours as an opportunity for growth and further service, I would feel slighted that I wasn't getting something more lucrative out of my time. And instead of being grateful for my health, my lovely new apartment, my safety, my loved ones, and for crying out loud my eternal salvation through redemption in Christ's blood, I found myself subconsciously resenting God for not giving me what I really need (as if I were to know what was in the first place). In my tunnel vision, I was sinning against the living God. And the potential damage of this is far more serious than any physical consequence that might result from a lack of income.
Tunnel vision in the physical and the spiritual sense are alike in that they remove us from the bigger picture of what's going on. For every one element that we narrowly focus in on, we're missing out on one hundred other elements that are simultaneously and significantly impacting us. And without seeing that bigger picture, how can we possibly expect to react appropriately? Truth, and the truth of where we are (in every sense of the phrase) is all encompassing, and our vision of it needs to be accordingly comprehensive. We must never lose sight of the bigger picture.
So how to we avoid tunnel vision? We train. We train and train until we come to believe and to trust that the techniques we practice without a weapon are exactly the same and just as effective in a situation with a weapon. We practice with substitutes for weapons until the martial arts techniques replace even our natural tendency toward tunnel vision. Indeed, the art itself becomes our instinct and what we act upon first and foremost. This is not to suggest that we will be without fear when someone draws a deadly weapon on us. No amount of training can prepare you fully for a life threatening situation. But in the instance that it does come, we turn first to what is proven beneficial instead of to what is unknown and fear driven.
If someone comes at us with a knife, we need to trust that all of the training we've ever done is still effective and beneficial for our situation. If we're facing hardships, we need to trust that all of God's promises are still just as true as they ever were. Whatever the threat may be, it might change our situation but it does not change the truth. God alone is the Creator, and he alone is sovereign over this universe. God never breaks his promises. Ever. He is unchanging from eternity past to eternity future and we can trust that the truth of the Gospel will never change. God is the rightful king to the ultimate throne and the entirety of our lives should be lived in light of what he has done for us. We must train in righteousness according to this truth, putting into practice our trust in the Lord and his ways, so that however trying our circumstances may be our natural response will be faith in the Lord.
Yes, I need a source of income. God knows this. But his word tells me to seek first His kingdom, and I will trust that this really is what I need first and foremost. God has already resolved the biggest problem that I could ever face- atonement for my sin- and in light of that bigger picture, there is no reason to fear.
Are you able to see the bigger picture in your circumstances?
What do you have tunnel vision on right now?
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Saturday, August 6, 2011
On the Death Circle and Engaging the Enemy
When I started taking ninjitsu at UCLA, I didn't know anything about the philosophy of the art. I'd taken other martial arts classes before, and there was a lot of the same content across the board: being aware of your surroundings, reacting to your attacker, putting up a good defense, etc. I guess I figured that ninjitsu would probably involve something along those lines, maybe with some nunchucks incorporated in somehow.
So I was quite surprised when my instructor, Lance, began one of our first classes by teaching one of the main principles of ninjitsu.
"Alright, today we're going to learn about something called the Death Circle."
Excuse me, what?
The Death Circle, for those of you unaware, is the distance between your fingertips and your body when your arm is outstretched in front of you with your hand held flat, palm toward the earth. The concept is simply this: that should any person enter that radius with the express intent of seriously harming you, you must expect to fight to the death- and the person who dies will not be you. You need to be so continually aware of your surroundings that the enemy is never able to enter your Death Circle. However, even with the best decisions things can and do go wrong sometimes and if the enemy does come that close to you, you must be prepared to fully engage.
Lance went on to explain that this wasn't intended to be just some scary concept to sound bad-ass. Rather, the term is a reflection of the traditional roots of the art. Ninjitsu in this form evolved as a natural defense of commoners against the pillaging samurai who would violently raid villages during their final years of declining power. If you were a villager and some warrior was coming at you aiming to take your family, your livelihood and your very life, you had to be ready to fight to the death against him. You could not let the enemy into your Death Circle or you would die.
"Notice how I'm saying 'enemy,' not 'opponent,'" Lance continued. "'Opponent' implies a game, but we don't play games." He described how a ninja perceives the enemy, engages with the enemy if needed and gets the job done. No flashy moves. No admiring your work. Just do what you need to do to get home to your family.
Hm. Not quite what I'd heard in any other martial arts class.
I thought about that a lot after class. My main question was, now that I don't have to worry so much about rogue samurai raping and pillaging West LA, what does this no-nonsense recognition of/engaging with the enemy look like for me?
Enter the concept of spiritual warfare.
When I was a little girl, I was taught that spiritual warfare was happening on the earth. My parents taught me that there were things in the spiritual realm that humans can't see, both good and evil, and they were fighting for influence in this world. The message I got was that as Christians, we were to stay away from things that the Bible said was evil, and as long as we followed God we would be safe from spiritual evil. Now as a child I believed whatever I was taught about God and the concept of spiritual warfare was no exception. However, it wasn't something that I particularly wanted to dwell on. I mean, what was I supposed to do with that? Good and evil are having some sort of battle and I'm supposed to do something about it? It was a lot easier for me to just believe all of the nice, fluffy aspects of religion as opposed to trying to wrestle through some kind of spiritual contention that was happening in a realm I couldn't see.
As I got older, I started to appreciate the existence of the spiritual realm. I started to see more of the evil that I had been warned about, and not all of it could be explained through human actions and emotions. They were simple things, really. The look in a stranger's eye that inexplicably sent chills down my spine. An insidious little voice in my head telling me self-deprecating things that I knew weren't true. Hearing about horrible things that people did and trying to understand how one human being could possibly do things like that to another. These things added up and it got to the point where personally, I couldn't deny any longer that there truly was a presence of evil in this world, and there was a very good chance that part of that evil existed in the spiritual realm. But even then, I didn't see what all of this had to do with me. My physical, mental and spiritual health seemed alright to me, and I figured I'd satisfied whatever general requirements there were for "good" that those evil things were probably going to leave me alone.
As with so many other things in my life, learning the Gospel changed my entire perspective. I learned that God was the supreme source of good, and that he had created all things good originally. I learned that God had an enemy, Satan, who was very real and that this enemy's deception incited humans toward committing original sin. Sin was introduced into this world, with death being the ultimate consequence. Every ugly, torturous, mean thing that somebody ever said or did to somebody else was caused by this sin. I realized that rather than being a "good" person, I was a sinner just like everybody else and that I had acted very evilly toward other people and toward God. I saw that Jesus, through his death and resurrection, conquered death once and for all and that he took the punishment for all of the sins that anyone had ever committed- including me. And because I believe that is true, I will get to be with Jesus for eternity. Satan knows that Jesus has the power to defeat all evil, and so it is the devil's desire that people not come to believe in Jesus as the Savior.
From the spiritual perspective, the Death Circle is still a relevant concept for today. We may not be villagers on guard from warriors, but whether we like it or not we are standing on a spiritual battlefield and good and evil will continue to contend in our lives regardless of our individual stance on the manner. The crux of the matter is this: evil exists. The devil exists. And if you are a Christian aiming to spread the Gospel and give God glory, the devil does not like what you are doing. As a matter of fact, he will do anything he can to make sure you are not doing those things. The devil is your enemy, and he will engage you with the intent to kill.
So imagine you have a real enemy who is actively trying to deceive and ultimately kill you, by any means necessary. How would you react to that? What kinds of things would you want to know in order to prepare? What are the implications of choosing not to believe that this enemy exists?
Once you recognize an enemy, how close do you let that enemy get to you? Are you letting them sit at a 'safe' distance or do you let them into your Death Circle, where the real damage can be done?
Finally, when the enemy does engage you, how do you react? Or do you react at all?
"Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." -1 Peter 5:8
So I was quite surprised when my instructor, Lance, began one of our first classes by teaching one of the main principles of ninjitsu.
"Alright, today we're going to learn about something called the Death Circle."
Excuse me, what?
The Death Circle, for those of you unaware, is the distance between your fingertips and your body when your arm is outstretched in front of you with your hand held flat, palm toward the earth. The concept is simply this: that should any person enter that radius with the express intent of seriously harming you, you must expect to fight to the death- and the person who dies will not be you. You need to be so continually aware of your surroundings that the enemy is never able to enter your Death Circle. However, even with the best decisions things can and do go wrong sometimes and if the enemy does come that close to you, you must be prepared to fully engage.
Lance went on to explain that this wasn't intended to be just some scary concept to sound bad-ass. Rather, the term is a reflection of the traditional roots of the art. Ninjitsu in this form evolved as a natural defense of commoners against the pillaging samurai who would violently raid villages during their final years of declining power. If you were a villager and some warrior was coming at you aiming to take your family, your livelihood and your very life, you had to be ready to fight to the death against him. You could not let the enemy into your Death Circle or you would die.
"Notice how I'm saying 'enemy,' not 'opponent,'" Lance continued. "'Opponent' implies a game, but we don't play games." He described how a ninja perceives the enemy, engages with the enemy if needed and gets the job done. No flashy moves. No admiring your work. Just do what you need to do to get home to your family.
Hm. Not quite what I'd heard in any other martial arts class.
I thought about that a lot after class. My main question was, now that I don't have to worry so much about rogue samurai raping and pillaging West LA, what does this no-nonsense recognition of/engaging with the enemy look like for me?
Enter the concept of spiritual warfare.
When I was a little girl, I was taught that spiritual warfare was happening on the earth. My parents taught me that there were things in the spiritual realm that humans can't see, both good and evil, and they were fighting for influence in this world. The message I got was that as Christians, we were to stay away from things that the Bible said was evil, and as long as we followed God we would be safe from spiritual evil. Now as a child I believed whatever I was taught about God and the concept of spiritual warfare was no exception. However, it wasn't something that I particularly wanted to dwell on. I mean, what was I supposed to do with that? Good and evil are having some sort of battle and I'm supposed to do something about it? It was a lot easier for me to just believe all of the nice, fluffy aspects of religion as opposed to trying to wrestle through some kind of spiritual contention that was happening in a realm I couldn't see.
As I got older, I started to appreciate the existence of the spiritual realm. I started to see more of the evil that I had been warned about, and not all of it could be explained through human actions and emotions. They were simple things, really. The look in a stranger's eye that inexplicably sent chills down my spine. An insidious little voice in my head telling me self-deprecating things that I knew weren't true. Hearing about horrible things that people did and trying to understand how one human being could possibly do things like that to another. These things added up and it got to the point where personally, I couldn't deny any longer that there truly was a presence of evil in this world, and there was a very good chance that part of that evil existed in the spiritual realm. But even then, I didn't see what all of this had to do with me. My physical, mental and spiritual health seemed alright to me, and I figured I'd satisfied whatever general requirements there were for "good" that those evil things were probably going to leave me alone.
As with so many other things in my life, learning the Gospel changed my entire perspective. I learned that God was the supreme source of good, and that he had created all things good originally. I learned that God had an enemy, Satan, who was very real and that this enemy's deception incited humans toward committing original sin. Sin was introduced into this world, with death being the ultimate consequence. Every ugly, torturous, mean thing that somebody ever said or did to somebody else was caused by this sin. I realized that rather than being a "good" person, I was a sinner just like everybody else and that I had acted very evilly toward other people and toward God. I saw that Jesus, through his death and resurrection, conquered death once and for all and that he took the punishment for all of the sins that anyone had ever committed- including me. And because I believe that is true, I will get to be with Jesus for eternity. Satan knows that Jesus has the power to defeat all evil, and so it is the devil's desire that people not come to believe in Jesus as the Savior.
From the spiritual perspective, the Death Circle is still a relevant concept for today. We may not be villagers on guard from warriors, but whether we like it or not we are standing on a spiritual battlefield and good and evil will continue to contend in our lives regardless of our individual stance on the manner. The crux of the matter is this: evil exists. The devil exists. And if you are a Christian aiming to spread the Gospel and give God glory, the devil does not like what you are doing. As a matter of fact, he will do anything he can to make sure you are not doing those things. The devil is your enemy, and he will engage you with the intent to kill.
So imagine you have a real enemy who is actively trying to deceive and ultimately kill you, by any means necessary. How would you react to that? What kinds of things would you want to know in order to prepare? What are the implications of choosing not to believe that this enemy exists?
Once you recognize an enemy, how close do you let that enemy get to you? Are you letting them sit at a 'safe' distance or do you let them into your Death Circle, where the real damage can be done?
Finally, when the enemy does engage you, how do you react? Or do you react at all?
"Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour." -1 Peter 5:8
On Awareness
About a year after I began taking ninjitsu classes, I started joining my instructor to help out with the self defense classes that he taught on campus. We would get there early, warm up, discuss what would be taught, and watch as the students filed in. Most of them were a little nervous and not sure what to expect. Some of them were really excited at the prospect of learning how to punch, kick, throw, etc. As we got started it was usually clear that everyone there was ready to start their training in some bona fide kick-assery. But I don't think any of them ever anticipated how each class would begin.
"Ok, let's get started. How many doors are in the room? How many windows?"
Immediately heads turned to look around, but the students were instructed not to "cheat." The point of the exercise is to test your awareness of your surroundings, and not letting the students look was a way to get them to realize their failure to pay attention to the room they were in. After the point set in, then we considered together all of the doors, windows and any other possible escape routes from the room. Once that was done, the real curveball got thrown.
"Ok, now where's the tiger?"
A puzzling look descended on the students' faces and you could see the question on their minds: what tiger? Usually at least one astute student would proudly say, "There!" and point to a small stuffed tiger perched in a corner or atop another object in the room. The tiger had been hidden before class began in a spot that was not in direct line of sight but still out in the open. The instructor used this teachable moment to talk about how awareness and instincts can be tied together. We need to be able to identify when there is something unusual or "off" in our surroundings so that we can be quickly alerted to cues for danger. While the stuffed tiger posed no danger, an unattended box or knapsack may not prove to be so inocuous depending on its location in public.
Most self defense teachers I've talked to say that if they could, they would spend the entire self defense class talking about the importance of paying attention to surroundings and discussing good strategies for how to do so. The only problem is that if they did that, no one would ever stay for the classes because people want to learn the physical techniques associated with self defense. Most people consider these to be the "real" tools to use in the face of danger. Yet the importance of self awareness cannot be stressed enough. I don't care how proficient I become at a technique to break a choke hold, I would rather never have to use the technique at all and avoid any situation where I would ever need to break a choke hold. And that starts with smart decisions: do I need to walk down this dark path, or can I take the more brightly lit path one block further? Do I need to listen to my iPod and block out the noise around me right now, or can I wait a few minutes until I'm in my car to hear music? Do I stare down in my purse hunting for my keys and cell phone as I walk blindly, or are those objects I can have in hand before leaving my initial location? In order to make the best decision for the situation you're in and to really avoid danger, full awareness of your surroundings is absolutely imperative.
In the same way, we must constantly be aware of our spiritual surroundings. If our physical surroundings affect the amount of danger threatening our bodies, then likewise our mental and spiritual surroundings will affect the danger threatening our psyches and our souls. While we often consider the safety of our bodies to be of utmost importance (and indeed it is a significant matter, not to be taken lightly), the fact remains that no matter how safe our paths are, our bodies will inevitably die. The soul, however, is eternal, and to disregard its safety would be foolish at the least and fatally tragic at worst.
Spirital dangers are harder to observe, and they will differ for each of us. The following are a few things to consider regarding recognition of mental/spiritual dangers:
-Where are you at spiritually? That is, what do you believe about your own soul? If this isn't something that you've ever seriously sat down to think about, I'd encourage you to take the time to consider that now.
-What are you surrounded by? What's talking to you the most during the day? What are you looking at for most of your day? Everything around you is sending you a message of some sort; it is worthwhile to consider what those messages are.
-What do your instincts tell you about your surroundings? How do you react to those instincts? For instance, if you're in a situation where your instinct is to be angry or afraid, stop and consider- why do I feel this way? What is the source of my anger/fear and what I should be doing in response to this?
"Ok, let's get started. How many doors are in the room? How many windows?"
Immediately heads turned to look around, but the students were instructed not to "cheat." The point of the exercise is to test your awareness of your surroundings, and not letting the students look was a way to get them to realize their failure to pay attention to the room they were in. After the point set in, then we considered together all of the doors, windows and any other possible escape routes from the room. Once that was done, the real curveball got thrown.
"Ok, now where's the tiger?"
A puzzling look descended on the students' faces and you could see the question on their minds: what tiger? Usually at least one astute student would proudly say, "There!" and point to a small stuffed tiger perched in a corner or atop another object in the room. The tiger had been hidden before class began in a spot that was not in direct line of sight but still out in the open. The instructor used this teachable moment to talk about how awareness and instincts can be tied together. We need to be able to identify when there is something unusual or "off" in our surroundings so that we can be quickly alerted to cues for danger. While the stuffed tiger posed no danger, an unattended box or knapsack may not prove to be so inocuous depending on its location in public.
Most self defense teachers I've talked to say that if they could, they would spend the entire self defense class talking about the importance of paying attention to surroundings and discussing good strategies for how to do so. The only problem is that if they did that, no one would ever stay for the classes because people want to learn the physical techniques associated with self defense. Most people consider these to be the "real" tools to use in the face of danger. Yet the importance of self awareness cannot be stressed enough. I don't care how proficient I become at a technique to break a choke hold, I would rather never have to use the technique at all and avoid any situation where I would ever need to break a choke hold. And that starts with smart decisions: do I need to walk down this dark path, or can I take the more brightly lit path one block further? Do I need to listen to my iPod and block out the noise around me right now, or can I wait a few minutes until I'm in my car to hear music? Do I stare down in my purse hunting for my keys and cell phone as I walk blindly, or are those objects I can have in hand before leaving my initial location? In order to make the best decision for the situation you're in and to really avoid danger, full awareness of your surroundings is absolutely imperative.
In the same way, we must constantly be aware of our spiritual surroundings. If our physical surroundings affect the amount of danger threatening our bodies, then likewise our mental and spiritual surroundings will affect the danger threatening our psyches and our souls. While we often consider the safety of our bodies to be of utmost importance (and indeed it is a significant matter, not to be taken lightly), the fact remains that no matter how safe our paths are, our bodies will inevitably die. The soul, however, is eternal, and to disregard its safety would be foolish at the least and fatally tragic at worst.
Spirital dangers are harder to observe, and they will differ for each of us. The following are a few things to consider regarding recognition of mental/spiritual dangers:
-Where are you at spiritually? That is, what do you believe about your own soul? If this isn't something that you've ever seriously sat down to think about, I'd encourage you to take the time to consider that now.
-What are you surrounded by? What's talking to you the most during the day? What are you looking at for most of your day? Everything around you is sending you a message of some sort; it is worthwhile to consider what those messages are.
-What do your instincts tell you about your surroundings? How do you react to those instincts? For instance, if you're in a situation where your instinct is to be angry or afraid, stop and consider- why do I feel this way? What is the source of my anger/fear and what I should be doing in response to this?
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