You can listen to this post as a blogcast here. It is recorded by the author (06.53):

[Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, also called BJJ, Submission Wrestling or grappling, is a martial art that combines elements from judo and wrestling, among other things, but also allows strangulations and joint manipulations – that is, you don't stop when one party hits the floor, but continue with floor fighting until one party gives up. In other words, everything is allowed with the exception of punches, kicks, and dirty tricks such as bites and scratches. All forms of aids and weapons are of course also prohibited.]

Click here to read the first part of Jonathan's text: ‘'Aggression and the Shadow'’ ⋙

Martial arts

For me, martial arts are many things, a continent, a very special dimension of development opportunities, physical, mental, consciousness. Among other things, it is an opportunity, under responsible conditions, to work with aggression. Don't most of us – perhaps all of us – have tensions in our minds and bodies that go back a long way?

I remember an episode from when I was in about the third grade in English class. We had to draw things from the board and write their English names next to them. Pretty quickly I drew a house, a tree and the rest of the things. Then the teacher came down to my table. She told me that I had finished too quickly and should continue working, but I insisted that I had solved the task. She knelt down in front of my small table and ordered me to look her in the eyes. When I refused, she repeated the command repeatedly until, still looking down at the table, I felt so pressured that I hit her on the forearm. The blow was not hard, but her forearm was hovering a little above the table and therefore made a loud bang when it hit the tabletop.

I was sent home from school for three days. I remember my mother driving me into the woods so I could scream as loud as I wanted in frustration, and how nice it felt to be allowed to roar the anger out of my little body.

About ten years later, I was a teaching assistant. One day I watched a parent speak very unpleasantly and condescendingly to their child, and I could clearly see how upset the child was. I felt the impulse to speak up, to tell this parent that we don’t talk like that here. But a feeling that would come up many times during my years as a teaching assistant, substitute teacher, and classroom teacher prevented me from taking action. A feeling that aggression, even in the form of healthy boundary setting, is a violation – is dangerous. 

I have later learned that aggression, neither directed outward nor inward, is pure energy. I am now gradually learning to contact my aggression when I need it, to set boundaries in everyday life for example, but also to perform in training as well as in tournaments. There is an energy in anger. If I focus on the body, the breath and the technical movements, the extra energy is transformed into focus, determination and motivation.

Grappling is my opportunity to channel, to process unconscious content that was previously inaccessible to me. When I increase my ability to defend myself, to fight, through my training, I gain the confidence and strength to let the anger take shape and not have to suppress it, because I gradually trust more and more that I can contain and handle the energy that lies in the aggression.

Practice

Recently I cycled home from a lecture at the university where I study sociology. It had been a long day with a lot of discussions about the climate, crime and including large Western corporations that exploit people in developing countries as cheap labor in toxic, polluted environments. A text in particular that described how hundreds of people in Brazil, including infants, had been burned alive due to an oil spill that could have been avoided with normal safety measures had made an impression on me. Anger was active in me, an impulse to punish those responsible. Something that is of course far beyond both my area of responsibility and my capacity. But my thoughts were racing about all the suffering on the planet, and the darkness was growing. Suddenly it was as if I could look directly into the darkness, into the suffering. And it was as if it was looking back. At me.

It was so intense that I had to get off the bike, even though I was almost home. It was overwhelming, and even though I used both practice and training, the experience stayed with me for several days. It was only a day later that I was able to let go of my thoughts; to feel that the suffering I myself experienced in the situation was also a function of my perspective – my attitude of resistance, lack of acceptance of the state of things, of the enormously violent phenomenon I had come into contact with.

It was on the mat, bathed in sweat, while I tried to prevent the man on top of me from closing his arms around my neck, that this dawned on me; I do what I can, in my everyday life, in my tiny corner of the world. I do my best, and I do what I can to make my best better and better. That's all I can do. With meditation, martial arts training and love in my tool belt, I try to be, to live and to make the right decisions. Realizing this inspires confidence that I, as well as we, can handle the challenges that come. And when the round on the mat was over, and I had shaken hands with my partner, I had a moment to close my eyes, to breathe. See the darkness and face it without fear. Observing, neutral. Questioning, curious. Calmly letting go, just for a moment open to it. Then the clock beeped, a new opponent stood before me. "Shall we roll?"”