Culture, Historical Environment, and the Martial Arts

I read about this experiment once where they got these young men to pass each other in a hall way that was obstructed by a filing cabinet. If I recall what I read correctly, and odds are I didnt, one dude was in on the experiment and the other wasnt.  The inside guy was supposed to shoulder bump the lab rat dude and say something along the lines of "eff you."  Then they looked at how certain folks responded, I think they had them write down their feelings,  looked at how long they took to calm down if they got pissed off, and I think somewhere down the line they took blood samples or something to see what was going on as far as pissed off hormones getting shot into the blood stream.

Northerners, especially those who came from  tight knit agricultural communities along the lines of something you'd see on Little House on the Prairie were they first to shrug it off, even think it was funny, and forget about it.  The Southerners and Borderlanders( that strip of states that separate the North from the South) epecially those whose background was more of the poorer, subsistence level, agricultural background,  got pissed off and stayed pissed off.  In fact they got more worked up the more they thought about it and talked about it.  

The explanation was that people were a product of not only their present environment, but also their historical environment.  If a group of folks live in a certain area, or under a certain circumstance, for a few hundred years then that environment is going to mold whatever human being is adaptable to whatever environment it is.  A lot of folks want to connect this do darwinism, but its just common sense.  Everybody knows that a kid who grows up in a shitty environment is going to aquire social skills and survival skills to deal with that environment.  This applies for groups overtime.  Its a social, cultural genetic environmental cocktail effect.

Anyway, Its been figured out that pretty much all of the folks that get pissed easy, and stay pissed come from Northern England/Low Land Scotland.  The cultural Label for them is Scotch-Irish.  But what they are in reality is borderlanders/Buffer people.  It used to be policy for countries to move all their lowerclass problem folks out towards the border.   That way they got messed with first when problems cropped up, and by doing so it thinned out their numbers.  For the Upperclass, it was a Win-Win situation.   This Buffering the border with problem folks goes all the way back to when the Roman's built Hadrians Wall. What arose was clan warfare.  Burning and pillaging was a way of life so folks never got a real sense of property based security and comfort.  Basically, whats here today is probably going to be gone tomorrow.  So get used to it. 

The old saying that good fences makes good neighbors applies to this situation.  What happened in this area was it got overpopulated and all the trees got cut down and their wasnt piles of rocks to make fences.  So what happened is your livestock wondered all over the place to either be stolen or to trample over somebodies pathetic attempt at farming.  There was basically no reason for anybody to move from one place to another except to steal something or recover stolen property, or settle a score, so naturally strangers weren't particularly welcome, and so people got comfortable with xenophobia. 

About the only way for you to get along and protect your stuff is through a culture of personal honor and loyalty.  When someone messed with you, your stuff. or your kin, the severity of your response built up your reputation, and in this type of environment your reputation and the reputation of your kin is your " good fence that makes good neighbors." 

This kind of cocktail brewed for about a thousand years or so and then it got exported to Northern Ireland and the American Backcountry.   In the United States it Manifested itself in Genocidal Indian Wars,  Really Pissy Guerrilla Tactics that helped to secure Independence from Britain, the irrational 2nd amendment to the Constitution, the Powder Keg in waiting that was the American Civil War, Old West Lawlessness, the Famous Hatfield and Mccoy feuds(which was really a series of back country disputes where the Xenophobia turned inward.)

Nowadays, these cultural tendencies are just hair triggers to be exploited by slick politicians to scare the "stupid" white  lower class folks into being afraid of minoritiees, or to stir up public sentiment so corporations can use the military to steal somebodies stuff over seas. Its a simple divide an conquer strategy that folks are more than  happy to blindly go along with.  It presses all the right buttons. 

Anyway,  I say all this because Historically I belong to this type of group.  I can remember everybody that has pissed me off since the 2nd grade.  I also happen to have a Native American background, and while I think the Scotch Irish shit overrides anything that my Native American genes may have to offer, I do think I inherited the my shut up and watch tendencies from the Natives.  I have always liked to watch folks, make eye contact to figure folks out, and look out the window all day long. So the Japanese concept of Metsuke makes a lot of sense to me. 

A lot of my skepticism of the Martial Arts comes from my background.  Most folks dont care to admit it, but martial arts comes from the dueling mindset.  Some body stepped over a line, pissed someone off, and two guys have "squared off" to settle things. Maai and Metsuke explain it all.  A lot of folks try to teach martial arts from a self defense perspective but self defense for me equates to 3-5 young guys jumping my ass at a time and place of their choosing.

When you make eye contact you are really seeing what folks associate you with and what opinions they have formed about you.  They either dont notice you because they are wrapped up with something else, ignore you because you make them uncomfortable, if this is the case they usually find ways to point their bodies away from you, or they ignore you aggressively by pretending that you aren't there, Teenagers, especially girls are good at this, and so are wanna be alpha males and alpha males who are slipping. 

I notice a lot of big time Akikai dudes wont look anybody in the eye.  

All that does, is set off the, " you think you're better than me." hair trigger.   Guys who wear dresses need to make a little eye contact or they are going to open a can of something. 

If a boss tells you to come to his office, and does paper work while you fidget, this is what you are getting.    Everybody, Has run into someone at wal-mart who is thrown into social Kuzushi by seeing you.  Its because you remind them of a social environment that makes them uncomfortable.  And they arent living up to that standard at that particular moment because instead of a suit and tie, or a dress, or the crowd the usually surround themselves with,  they are  alone, in sweats, and a t-shirt with a mustard stain on it. 

When you make eye contact in a dueling contest,  a lot can be said about maintaining eye contact.  If a guy keeps eye balling you it means he's either trying to intimidate you into backing out, or he thinks very little of you.  If he doesnt make eye contact its either because he's afraid of you, or either made up his mind he's going to see it through.  If he breaks and returns, he's thinking about his reputation.  A lot can be said about when he breaks eye contact, or when he begins.  But the best way to deescalate a guy is by not eyeballing him back.  Let him win the little staring match if that makes him feel better. 

Nishio said this about Atemi.  I like Nishio because he says some pretty redneck things in a very polite Japanese way.  He said that with Atemi you take their words.  Eye contact can say one thing.  But when you put Atemi on someone, they have to form another opinion about you pretty quick.  If they are already scared, hitting them once can confirm it.  If they think they are better than you,  slamming them first fractures their safe world view.   Basically, everybody has a plan or opinion until they get hit in the mouth.  

Stepping backward or forward is another form of communication.  Sometimes you can intimidate folks by adjusting the distance, other times a foot forward says a lot.  

Anyway, Atemi is a cultural mindset. Its a form of communication.  Attitude adjustment. or the Taking of words.  In a dojo, Atemi cant exist in this way.  Atemi is a mechanical, theoretical thing.  not a form of communication. 

Its hard for me to buy into a lot of martial arts ideas because of the  Scotch-irish cultural ideas of escalation and righteous assault.  A lot of folks tell me that so and so in his prime could of have kicked my ass, especially if I write about them in an unfavorable way.  But in my Universe, in the slow cooked Cultural Borderlander universe,  you can study all the Kodokan Judo, BJJ, Put your Toe through a tire,  break a block of ice with your head shit you want, but you aint got a solution for a baseball bat to the knee cap that you didnt see coming.  It's acceptable if you are the bigger asshole, and you had it coming.  It's solving a problem outside, the duelling framework. 

I can say that the Martial Arts has helped me past identify the cultural/genetic hair triggers I have.  But by recognizing my hair triggers,  I also see that competitive environment is a form of a safety valve. I recognize that what we are studying is in the framework of a two man duel, it isnt self defense. It's about two guys mutually crossing a certain line. Randori allows folks to get past a lot of ignorant ass notions with out bringing about harmful effects to everybody else.  The problem is, and a lot of BJJ guys believe this, that their ideas of gaming and dueling can fit any situation.  From assaults to guns, to zombie apocalypses, to soccer riots. 

I dont see any problem with the "game" of Tomiki Aikido.   And I'm probably going to explore the game more than the martial art side for awhile, because culturally martial thinking sets off too many hair triggers. Martial Arts is about climbing, about getting over ideas and ignorant notions,  and people dont want to take your word for it, they want to climb the same mountain you did, so they can get over it.  And "it", is different for everybody.