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.
- Making Sense of Violence - November 23, 2024
- Rediscovering my Practice - October 20, 2024
Wow, firstly I’m glad you came out without any permanent injuries. I’ve had students that did not realize they were in a potential dangerous situation and took the first blow. Self defense can be very unforgiving.
I assumed that all Asian martial arts focused on self-defense on some level rather than the mechanics of the techniques. If not I’d argue that the beginning of any altercation can go a long way into predicting one’s success.
I like aikido and often heard it was one of the harder martial arts to learn. I appreciate using one’s own attack against them. In Kenpo I use some karate, kung fu and jiu jitsu moves so some similarity in some techniques.
What I said to anyone that came into my school in the 80’d that had an altercation is I would teach them about critical distance and how to mount an effective defense. What martial art one likes and uses is not as important as trying to be aware.
I’ll end with a funny story when I misjudged a situation. I was a doorman at a local bar in my early 20’s. I told a guy that was misbehaving that he had to leave. All of his friends stood up menacingly. I told them, “let’s talk outside” and they all followed me out. My plan was to tell them they were all kicked out of the bar for that night. But what happened is they all jumped me. I had to tumble out of their hold and found myself shirtless and fighting six guys.
The embarrassing part to me is I did not realize that calling a bunch of guys outside to talk was to them calling them all out to fight!
I was a good fighter and for 15 minutes I held my own and after the cops showed up the cops were wondering where I trained. My instructor ended up signing a couple of the cops for lessons.
So in closing my lesson that night was keep my wits about me, and with that and creating some distance, helped me come out ok in future altercations.
Wow Sensei Aaron! That’s a good story on many levels. Not the least of which was the degree of functional self-reflection that followed. Facing actual violence & fear are lessons we mostly avoid talking about in Aikido training. I believe this avoidance is sometimes to our detriment, whereby “the gentle art” is erroneously construed as an ineffective martial because we are not training to maim or kill.
But your experience tells a different and much more important story. You, being an average person, were visited by an unanticipated spirit of aggression – an element all too often present among humans. And no amount of positive “gentleness” is going to change that equation anytime soon.
So, your takeaway that practicing a more realistic mindfulness in a variety of potentially volatile situations is an essential part of Kihon. In fact I’m quite certain that O Sensei not only was well experienced, but all his students were as well. Meaning that he likely did not have to teach to the relevance of situational awareness – it was already inherent in the basic understanding of conflict situations.
And by this measure, Aikido, together with a high degree of situational awareness is the perfect art for modern civilized interpersonal discourse and conflict because it emphasizes strategies firstly NOT to fight, secondly to only respond with a degree of counter aggression appropriate to a given situation.
Your unfortunate circumstance on that fateful day was a lesson in situational awareness – being punched out of complacency is an extremely hard lesson(!). But your subsequent responses reflect not only your strength of character, but a dedication to the essence of your chosen art – but now with visceral wisdom.
I’m personally so glad you’ve chosen to maintain your commitment to the art of Aikido & grateful to be a part of your journey – Gambatte! 🙏
Hi Aaron,
I’m very sorry that happened to you and I’m also glad you avoided serious damage. What a senseless and terrible attack.
You wrote, “We ate and drank our way through the night….” And, “We left the last bar around midnight.” The non response you described is far from normal, unless the first punch rendered you helpless. That can easily happen. Depending upon how much you drank, the non response could also have been the result of alcoholic impairment. To me, IMO it’s less a martial arts story and more of a cautionary tale. Be aware of your surroundings, stay alert and be moderate. But sometimes bad luck and bad things happen. You sound like you’ve used the experience to build a better you.
Hi Bill,
Thanks for reading and commenting on my article. By the end of that night I was tired, but had only had a couple of drinks and was entirely lucid. My non-response was just that.
Interestingly, they talk about the sympathetic system’s fight/flight/freeze response, and I look back and don’t really see what I did as fitting any of those. I was actively playing out a hypothesis that being a good person with good intents was enough. Now I know that was insufficient. Lesson learned.
Best,
Aaron
I’ve been thinking and dreaming about it. A couple of thoughts. I have seen in boxing matches, trained boxers taking one head shot and becoming disoriented and unable to defend themselves. I think you are thinking that you were unresponsive with no reason….or the reason was a decision to not respond with violence. I don’t understand. Anyway, if you had trained in bbj, mma, boxing, grappling or any other fighting art, you may have done the same. You didn’t utilize aikido…which would be a creative response to avoid harm. Do you have a thiught on what you wished you had done or what you would train a student to do in a similar situation? By the way, I think you are an amazing person…I guess that was a destiny moment with learning to be gleened.