Pain

 I often ask myself how much pain is good and how much pain is bad. This probably seems like something that's likely instinctual in most people, but as I've studied this subject I do often wonder about it. What leads me to thinking about it is the inevitable pain associated with Aikido.  Pain exists on many levels, and somehow Aikido seems to exploit them all.  What I've noticed over the years is how unwilling many people are to experience any pain at all.  This could be seen as hugely sensible, but I'm not so sure. 

What I am sure about is that anything of substance that I've accomplished in my life had pain of some kind associated with it. One could argue that graduating high school or college in a way is just an ability to endure pain. Certainly there are those classes that we love, but in general the amount of work involved is sometimes tedious, the classes themselves can be dull and often it's really just about enduring. Aikido is no different. You keep going, you keep training, and at the end you accomplish something, whatever your personal goal may be. 

 

There is physical pain associated with Aikido training and there is also emotional pain; both of which people tend to run from. Physically I think we get it, but emotional pain is different. Sometimes it's as mundane as a plateau. Everyone who trains in any physical activity reaches moments where they feel they aren't improving. This is frustrating and painful in ways, and I've seen many people quit at this moment. For the life of me I can't understand why. I mean, of course I get it but I wonder what someone hopes to accomplish by quitting. Nothing of substance has ever been accomplished by quitting a thing, yet it seems that it's something we happen to be very, very good at.  

Although I've chosen Aikido, I think studying anything, focusing on it, pushing yourself to accomplish some goal and then actually accomplishing it is a hugely important component to life training. This is a skill that helps us in many, many ways and I worry that we've become too conditioned to giving up at the slightest resistance. Is this true? Do we run the minute a thing offers us some push back? I think this is likely putting it too strongly, but this has been my experience. 

However, taking on needless pain is called self-abuse, so there must be some line between an acceptable amount of pain that will help us grow, and too much pain that will tear us down. Pain frightens people, so at the slightest touch they recoil, but they haven't come anywhere close to going too far. I don't suggest trying to go too far, that isn't my point, but the first sensation of pain is likely not enough to cause any harm (of course, depending on what we are talking about). But in general, in terms of life pain, my suggestion is to try enduring; patient endurance as Herman Hesse told us in Siddhartha. 

Be okay with some pain, push a little bit against personal limitation in order to see what lies beyond that initial limit. Be brave and have faith and confidence in yourself that you'll know when it's time to pull back. Timidity, hesitation, these are the things that limit me and that limit all of us. Again, over exuberance and mindlessness lead us to undue pain, but people who posses these traits are rare.  

The point isn't to just be in pain for the sake of it, but to learn to push through personal limitations. Whatever the goal might be, whatever a person wants to accomplish in their life will not be accomplished without some ability to endure. No great success story starts off with, "it was pretty easy, I guess." At least I haven't heard this story and if I did it wouldn't move me in any way.  We like underdog stories, we like stories about the little guy rising up to meet and overcome challenges. In writing we say there are three types of conflict, man versus man, man versus nature and man versus society. In any of these types of conflict there is always, without exception, pain. We cannot avoid pain, it is part of our human condition, so it's my opinion that we need to train ourselves in how we manage pain, resolve pain, and in how we understand our own and others pain. We do this, at least in terms of a metaphor, by practicing endurance. By allowing pain to be what it is, and continue on in our lives is one way in which we can improve ourselves and not giving up at each new iteration. 

I've been training martial arts fairly actively for almost twenty years now, and I promise you there have been infinite moments where I want to quit. I may still quit, I don't know, but I haven't yet and because of that I feel as if I've accomplished something.  Maybe nothing that great, but I've endured, I know I can endure, and this feels like an accomplishment to me. I also leaped out of a marriage after only a few years, so I do realize we all have our times when we can endure and when we can't, but, the point is to recognize pain for what it is and practice not allowing that pain to limit us.  

Although I don't think we need to go back to this mind set of thinking that asking for help is weakness, I do think we could use a little bit of fortitude. Once again my quick post has gotten out of control so I'll revisit this at some other point.