Tae Kwon Do It
I took my first Tae Kwon Do class the other day. I’ve done lots of sports and enjoy the edges I find within them, so, after 13 years of practicing yoga, I was curious about this similar martial art. The metaphor of doing battle interested me since I often feel like I’m personally at war - with my own efforts to change things and the need to accept and detach from those same efforts. I sometimes feel ready to “fight” and am not always sure how that fits into my life and my purpose.
So, here I am in this gym, running around on a mat, doing push ups and sit-ups and yelling “yes sir!” - ninth-grade gym class meets Boot Camp! Once we were sweating, we started doing side kicks, 40 at a time - hard - into mats held by my classmates, complete with a warrior cry and intermittent bowing. I admit, it felt good, though by the time I was done, seemed less like a spiritual, life-changing practice than “Tae Kwon Do It”.
I was grateful to return to my yoga mat the next day, though I have to say that I brought a renewed sense of vigor with me. Ashtanga provides a balance of hard and soft, ease and effort. It made me wonder, can we be peaceful warriors in this fight to save the planet? Can we tap into the strength and determination we need to “push the iceberg” without losing our compassion and peace? Yoga tells me yes, though I worry about our culture’s willingness to dig deep into what it takes to change.
Ron Kauk, a climber in El Portal, CA spoke to me through a quote I read in Late Summer Patagonia catalog, “How are we supposed to evolve when we’re so caught up in material things? Society is so anxious. We want so much and we want it all, now. Man…you need to work at it, you need to put in the time in order to be rewarded.”
Can we survive disillusionment and bridge the gap between knowing and doing? I believe it’s all in the flow - that balance of ease and effort, work and surrender and our willingness to rediscover both inspiration and purpose. Perhaps it takes sweat, focus and making some noise. But within that, we can find our peace.
August 3rd, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Beautiful post, well expressed. I’ve wondered these things many times myself. The truth for me is that we simply don’t know. We may make it through this new wave of old human issues, or we may not. The actions people like you and I and fellow conscious citizens need to take doesn’t change, though, regardless of how it turns out. I like to think of my life choices in terms of Nietzsche’s concept of the ‘eternal return of the same’ - act as though this life we’re living now is the one we will live over and over eternally. That oughta cut down on the number of times we choose poorly.