Writing about physical joy
Is aikido like a mosh pit?
I’ve never been in a mosh pit. (I have been in a six-person aikido freestyle.) I’m not one for loud, crowded concerts. But when I read a description of getting into the pit in Lilly Dancyger’s excellent First Love: Essays on Friendship (I received an advance copy for my review, forthcoming in Open Letters Review), I immediately felt what that must be like.
I’ve been trying to write what my black belt test was like, particularly the freestyle, which is when five people attack, grab, and shove you around (in a loving and supportive way). This is very hard to describe for people who have never experienced this exercise we do. My readers simply do not understand the physicality in the way I have written it (so far).
Lilly’s description of the mosh pit, being jostled and shoved into people, avoiding elbows, all in a joyful celebration, reminded me strongly of our aikido freestyle. She writes, “My feet finding the ground only to launch back into someone’s sweaty torso, someone’s waiting hands, shoulders, arms; pushing each other and catching each other and not minding the sharp elbows or the heavy feet or the sudden shoves. Letting the tension be pummeled out of my body.”
She also shows her cousin/best friend how to hold an arm up to protect her face, and puts her body in the way of the elbows and kicks so her cousin is protected. This is what we do in aikido, too—we protect each other physically.
This is a physical way of showing love.
I went to aikido camp in New Jersey a couple of weeks ago. Sensei was not there, and classes were led by U.S. instructors. I participated in five freestyles as one of the five ukes and watched a handful of others.
In the freestyles, I felt intensely focused, conscious of every gasping breath, yet motivated to run in fast and get to the person testing before anyone else. I had my hands up to protect my face. I took one kick to the stomach from another uke. I was glad it wasn’t to my face. A freestyle only lasts 45 seconds, usually, but it feels like 5 minutes. About 40 seconds in I am convinced I am dying from lack of oxygen. But then, they call it and I get to sit down and recover.
Sitting and watching from the audience for other freestyles, I suddenly remembered, we clap. When a freestyle starts, applause breaks out and continues for the whole 45 seconds as the person testing throws one of the five or gets grabbed by everyone and pushed around for a few seconds. People yell, “c’mon!” When I’m part of the show, I don’t hear the noise. But fifty or a hundred people clapping and yelling fills the gymnasium with a roar.
My latest breakthrough for how to write about a black belt freestyle is this: the reader is part of the audience. I tried to write how it felt internally for me to take the test. But that was after I had watched hundreds of such tests myself and understood what was happening. The reader will have a better time watching, clapping, and cheering, being part of a community supporting the person testing for those few minutes.
This goes back to last week’s thoughts on vacation photos. Sometimes readers just want to look at vacation photos. They want to have a good time watching the test as a performance, not stressing about having to perform.
Writing that demonstrates and shares joy is important.
Happy publication week to First Love by Lilly Dancyger!
First Love: Essays on Friendship is a touching, vulnerable thank-you letter to true friends. From Lilly Dancyger, author of the excellent memoir Negative Space, this essay collection travels through grief, heartbreak, addiction, and shows how friends keep us alive.
Dancyger’s writing is visceral and vivid. From being joyfully shoved around in a mosh pit to wandering the streets of NYC as a teen to dropping to her knees dry heaving from the grief of losing a loved one, I felt her descriptions in my stomach.
Friendships can be a powerful and long-term love that many writers do not acknowledge. So many memoirs are about significant others, parents, and children, and so few shine the spotlight on friends. I love this much-needed representation of women supporting women.
If you are looking for beautifully poignant, true stories that celebrate friends, I recommend checking out First Love.
Thanks so much for reading! Let me know what you think in the comments.
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Take care,
Rey
I used to frequently get involved in mosh pits when I was a teen! Then one day I was involved in a massive, several hundred person crush at a music festival that left me with a lifelong shoulder injury and a delayed-reaction hatred of crowds that intensifies each year.
Yeah, it's a mosh pit where everyone wants to F you up ={}
I still have damage to part of my wrist I feel from an earlier injury, from my nidan test, and that initial injury being caused mostly a partner who was acting dumb..being kicked is not too pleasant. I don't mind being hit, it's a good way to practice--actually, since then I've had some time to think about it, and I think part of the problem is this is that in Kokikai at least, we go from 0 to 100 with these tests, as randori is not something people typically practice in their dojos. I've heard various explanations for this, and none of them really makes sense to me. In my first dojo, in which I had a teacher operating at a very high level who had practiced under his teacher in Japan for 7 years, Mochizuku, one of the top direct students of Ueshiba, randori at a more low grade level was regularly built into practice. This is a much more intelligent way to do things, in my opinion. It's like doing lower grade aerobic hikes before you lead up to backpacking (which everyone agrees is a good idea) vs having only jogged in a flat park then going backpacking. Whether a mosh pit or a dojo, I think the ultimate point is to practice as long and hard as we can..in a way that is most sustainable for people.