Listening
by Fran Turner
- Lis • ten: hear attentively; pay attention to (a person speaking or some utterance); make an effort to hear something; give attention with the ear to; pay heed to...
It's been over a year since Zane, the foundling puppy, came into our lives. He still has velvet
ears but weighs about sixty pounds now and is a stick-chasing, stick-chewing enthusiast. I never
would have believed that I'd become so stuck on a dog.
One of the many things I appreciate about him is how he listens when I speak. Not that he is an especially obedient dog, he scraped through in his obedience classes. He has an attitude of I hear what you say, but I just have to exercise my freedom. I am talking about a different kind of listening. Sometimes I tell him my plans for us that day, "Zane, later on this morning we're going to meet Henry and Skipper and we'll walk along the trail"; then I may go on a bit more about the time, the details and various trivia. He sits and listens to me, his clear brown eyes wide open, and cocks his head from one side to the other. Probably most of what I have to say is just babble to him, but he is so patient. What he conveys in his attentive stance and soft face is this feeling that all the cells in this hound-being are just listening, not adding to what I have to say, not trying to make something worthwhile out of it, not judging me or my verbiage. This ability to open up and just listen — I respect it tremendously.
It is important to listen — in aikido practice and in our lives — not just to the words but to what is behind the words, not just with the physical ears, but with the inner ears, too, and with the whole body.
In class, most often during kokyu dosa practice, students hear me say, "Listen to your partner." In this part of class it becomes glaringly obvious how hard it is to listen and keep from imposing ourselves upon the situation. We want to show we are clever, powerful, that we can take care of things. And kokyu dosa seems so simple: just two people facing each other in seiza, one holding the other's wrists. No opportunity for fancy footwork or sweeping moves to assert cleverness, power or mastery. Often I see that as soon as uke grabs hold of the wrists, nage starts writhing around, trying to push uke over.
Maybe it's hard to believe that in real-life circumstances we possess everything we need to deal with situations that arise. In kokyu dosa, however, we really do have what is needed, and it's a matter of stepping aside to allow that thing to move us to its fulfillment. When the grasp is tight and hard, our ordinary mind urges us to react with tight muscles and a hard push. By listening, we discover where to move, so that we can maintain the grasp and therefore be safe. If the grasp is broken by nage's movements, he or she immediately becomes vulnerable to a strike. Uke needs to listen, too, because if uke breaks the hold by being rigid, then he/she can be struck. Can we soften our eyes and listen kinesthetically to uke's grasp on the wrists, to what is being given to us? Can we move with it, neither adding nor taking away?
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