Aikido: a Martial Art with Mindfulness, Somatic, Relational, and Spiritual Benefits for Veterans
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Spirituality in Clinical Practice © 2017 American Psychological Association 2017, Vol. 4, No. 2, 81–91 2326-4500/17/$12.00 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/scp0000134 Aikido: A Martial Art With Mindfulness, Somatic, Relational, and Spiritual Benefits for Veterans David Lukoff Richard Strozzi-Heckler Sofia University, Palo Alto, California Strozzi Institute, Oakland, California Aikido is a martial art that originated in Japan and incorporates meditation and breathing techniques from Zen Buddhism. Like all martial arts, it requires mindful concentration and physical exertion. In addition, it is a compassion practice that also provides a spiritual perspective and includes social touch. These components make Aikido a unique form of mindfulness that has the potential to be particularly appealing to veterans coming from a Warrior Ethos tradition who are used to rigorous somatic training. Mindfulness practices have shown efficacy with veterans, and the self- compassion, spiritual, and social touch dimensions of Aikido also offer benefits for this population, many of whom are struggling with these issues. Several pilot Aikido programs with veterans that show promise are described. Keywords: mindfulness, veterans, PTSD, spirituality, martial arts Aikido, like all martial arts, requires mindful spiritual dimensions in his martial art and de- concentration and physical exertion. In addi- scribed it as “The Way of Harmony.” tion, it is a compassion practice that provides a Aikido emphasizes working with a partner, spiritual perspective and social human touch. rather than sparring, grappling, or fighting Aikido emerged in twentieth-century Japan fol- against an opponent in competitive tourna- lowing an evolution of martial arts over hun- ments. Aikido techniques neutralize and control dreds of years from a system of fighting arts attackers instead of violently defeating them. (bugei) designed to inflict injury and death, into Blending movements are used with breathing a Way (in the Eastern sense of Tao or “do”— practices to somatically create harmony in con- path of self-development). Aikido translates as flictual encounters (Shioda, 1991). It has often the path (do) to a union (ai) with life-energy been described as a moving meditation because (ki). The founder of Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba it involves concentrating purposefully on each (1964), who was considered a “national trea- technique element, being aware of others, main- sure” for his martial arts mastery, had a spiritual taining balance, controlling breathing, and con- awakening in which he realized, necting with the training partner. These actions The Way of the Warrior has been misunderstood. It is establish a psychophysiological state of relaxed not a means to kill and destroy others. Those who seek attention in which one responds quickly, pre- to compete and better one another are making a terrible mistake. To smash, injure, or destroy is the worst thing cisely, and courageously to physical attacks, a human being can do. The real Way of a Warrior is to including those by multiple attackers (Lothes, This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. prevent such slaughter—it is the Art of Peace, the Hakan, & Mochrie, 2015). This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individual user and is not to bepower disseminated broadly. of love. (Hyodo, 2010,p.76) The authors have decades of experience uti- Ueshiba highlighted the self-development and lizing Aikido with veterans and active military. We believe that Aikido has unique appeal and benefits for these populations because it is a martial art that is also a mindfulness practice, David Lukoff, Department of Clinical Psychology, Sofia somatic exercise, compassion practice, and spir- University, Palo Alto, California; Richard Strozzi-Heckler, itual path while also providing opportunities for Strozzi Institute, Oakland, California. social touch. Veterans are at high risk for com- Correspondence concerning this article should be ad- dressed to David Lukoff, 101 Ross Street #30, Cotati, CA mitting suicide with an average of 20 veterans a 94931. E-mail: [email protected] day dying from suicide in 2014 (Currier, Kuhl- 81 82 LUKOFF AND STROZZI-HECKLER man, & Smith, 2015). Posttraumatic stress dis- other words, causing you stress. After trying reactions order (PTSD) is the most common psychologi- such as pushing to fight back (fight), running away cal condition diagnosed among military (flight) and cowering (freezing), the MBSR training requires what is called blending in aikido....It personnel and contributes to a wide range of requires that we be aware of the other person as a other adverse health outcomes including panic stressor without losing our own balance of mind. attacks, depression, substance abuse, sleep dis- (Clark, 2017) turbance, family dysfunction, and occupational Remaining calm and balanced amid conflict is a impairment (Currier et al., 2015). Aikido is dis- mindfulness skill that is not an automatic re- cussed here as a practice that has the potential to be particularly beneficial for veterans struggling sponse, but can be learned through practices with these problems. that involves rigorous training in an alternative response to the “fight or flight” reaction. This method of dealing with conflict from a relaxed Mindfulness Practice grounded stance becomes a new learned coping response to stress in all forms of conflict, not Historically, meditation and related breathing just physical (Heckler, 1985; Strozzi-Heckler, exercises have been a part of Japanese martial 1993). art traditions since the days of the Samurai in medieval Japan where warriors who dealt with While research documenting that training in life and death everyday embraced the medita- Aikido enhances mindfulness is more limited tion practices of Zen monks to help them calm than for sitting meditation techniques, there are their mind and body (Lothes, Hakan, & Kassab, a few studies that establish this connection. 2013; Stevens, 1992, 2001). Like tai chi, Aikido Lothes et al. (2013) investigated 159 partici- is often described as moving meditation or pants using two empirically validated scales of mindfulness in motion that requires stilling of mindfulness and awareness: the Kentucky In- the mind while the body is in motion. The ventory of Mindfulness Skills (KIMS) and the training process has many parallels with medi- Mindfulness Attention Awareness Scale tation training. An Aikido student trying to (MAAS). Their survey asked participants their learn an unfamiliar technique is likely to have Aikido rank, which roughly corresponds to the distracting thoughts, such as “which foot goes number of years of regularly attending Aikido where? or “I’m not doing it right.” This is classes. A comparison group of non Aikido similar to the novice meditator who finds it practitioners who were not engaged in any difficult to stay focused on their breath or man- mindfulness practices was also assessed. The tra. But over time, with practice, both the med- pre black belt group with 3–44 months of train- itator and the Aikido practitioner improve their ing scored significantly higher than the control ability to recognize a distracting thought and group on both measures, and the black belt come back to the present. group with 66–348 months of training scored With continued training, Aikido students significantly higher than both the control group learn ways to defend themselves from not only and the pre black belt group. physical attacks, but from verbal and emotional Longitudinal research by the same authors attacks as well. For this reason, Aikido practices studied 12 Aikido students with no prior martial have been incorporated into nonmartial arts arts experience from their beginning through This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. mindfulness programs such as Jon Kabat-Zinn’s their first belt ranking tests (approximately 9 This article is intended solely for the personal use of the individualwell-researched user and is not to be disseminated broadly. and widely disseminated Mind- months of training). A control group of partic- fulness Based Stress Reduction program ipants was recruited from a psychology class. A (MBSR; Kabat-Zinn et al., 1992). For example, one-way repeated measures analysis of variance in one exercise developed by George Leonard (ANOVA) showed a significant effect of Aikido (1999), an Aikido sensei (teacher), MBSR stu- dents break up into pairs in order to, training on The Kentucky Inventory of Mind- fulness Skills (KIMS, p Ͻ .0001) and also on help us to act out with our bodies, in partnership with Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS, another person, the experience of responding instead of p Ͻ .01). Post hoc t tests run between Aikido reacting in threatening and stressful situations....In class, the partner who is “attacking” always represents and control groups on the KIMS and MAAS a situation or person who is “running you over,” in scores at each testing time showed statistically AIKIDO AND MINDFULNESS FOR VETERANS 83 significant differences between the control and Tai chi practices involve movements that are Aikido groups that were not present at baseline. similar to Aikido but are mostly done without a Lothes et al. (2015) conducted a second lon- training partner. Tai chi has been shown to gitudinal study with five Aikido students from increase lung capacity (Jahnke, Larkey, Rogers, the start of training through to their obtaining Etnier, &