The Old Rain Tree

An Old Rain Tree felled in a forest on Monday.

There was a great sense of sadness and loss that echoed through the forest, especially amongst the animals that has lived with the Old Rain Tree for a long time. While there are also many great trees in the forest, this one was special, its branches grew long and wide, and has offered many squirrels’ refuges; birds a nest for them to roost, shade for a tired bear to rest, and it’s roots run deep into the ground, and it’s firm standing even helped saved a few bunnies from being swept away in a bout of bad thunderstorm not too long ago.

The felling of this magnificent Tree sent a vibration through the forest floor, and all creatures large and small came, and gathered by the fallen Great Tree. Some cranes from faraway, flew back, upon hearing that the Great Old Tree has fallen. Storks gathered, some of them hadn’t seen the Old Tree for a long time, but came as quickly as their wings can take them.

Everyone gathered, has something good to say about the Old Tree.

“The Old Tree has given me a nest to raise my 5 chicks.” One of the Stork said.

“There this time, the Old Tree gave part of this branches to this farmer for him to use as firewood and warm his family!” A Chipmunk mentioned.

“He’s my favorite scratching spot!” An old brown bear growled.

Everyone in the forest, near and far has benefitted from the wisdom, protection, care and love from the Old Rain Tree. They will all miss the Old Tree, and wondered what the future will hold for them.

“Where are we going to build our nests? Now that our dear old friend is no longer there?” Chirped one of the mama birds, distressed about the tree.

“How about us? Where can we stash our nuts?” a family of Squirrels pondered in earnest. “Our old friend helps us keep our nuts for the winter!”

“The forest will never be the same anymore.” the bunnies whined, vividly remembering, how the Old Tree reached down and let the terrified bunnies held onto his branch as the torrential rain threaten to sweep the creatures to a certain death.

But the Old Tree has a plan.

Long before this fateful day, the Old Rain Tree has already set in motion and make the forest a place the animals can continue to thrive long after he is gone.

You see, there was never a forest, it was nothing but a barren land, and the little young sapling of a Rain Tree decided to grow there. This small Rain Tree grew against the weather, the sun, the bad soil, he grew and grew and got so big, that some woodsmen even came to try and chop it down. They were close, but the little band of animals in the forest stood with the tree and protected the Rain Tree from further harm. This tree is precious and sacred to the animals and they turned the woodsmen away.

From then on, the land around the Rain Tree grew, and thrive, it dropped seeds on the forest floor, and while many seeds didn’t grow, some did; as the Great Old Rain Tree grow in stature and magnificence, small little rain trees started sprouting around it, adding to the shade, and adding to the magnificence of the forest.

So the animals in the forest don’t need to worry, because while the Great Old Rain Tree has fallen, there are also many trees around it, all grown from the same seed, providing the shade protection and nourishment the Great Old Rain Tree provided. While he is gone, he has given his seeds and raised many more young trees to help the forest flourish. These young trees will stand their own, and this is their time to stand against the elements, and join the ranks of the other Great Trees in the forest.

This is the legacy of the Old Rain Tree.

Profanities

Dear Boys,

We will have to deal with this sooner than later. Perhaps a couple of years down the road, when you both are matured enough, the use of profanities will eventually enter your vernacular. Until then…

Of late, Ian, you’ve told me that you have a classmate who uses the ‘F’ word in a liberal manner in school and even in the presence of a teacher. And you think that he is a brave kid in doing so. Let me tell you what I told you that evening, it is not a brave thing, neither is it a cool thing.

Sure, you hear about it in the movies, in TV shows and perhaps even me using it. We cannot avoid it, I do use it, and more liberally when I am in Army fatigues. I have a linguistic degree and for that fact, I am minimally qualified to tell you that, in any language, cursing and swearing is very normal. It helps us, to a certain degree, manage our emotions, it serves as a kind of outlet for our negativity. Sometimes it is useful, sometimes it is counterproductive.

But don’t you dare utter this, kids, as personally, for me, it is a big no, no. I cannot stop you boys from hearing it, but I sure as hell (that’s cussing too!) do not want to hear you boys using it, not at this age.

Ian, your classmates used it, that is his problem, like I said, he has a dirty mouth, it is his parents’ responsibilities to clean it. If his parents doesn’t clean his dirty mouth, chances are, someone, a member of society will take matters into their own hands and do some cleaning themselves.

Personally, I do not use it, as linguistically, I have far more useful words in my repertoire to serve my anger in a message without the use of profanity. As mentioned earlier, my usage only increased when I am in military service.

There is something about the military that is closely linked to the use of profanities and other derogatory words. Its the culture, and when I used it in the military, it serves a functional purpose, not for an angry outburst, not to piss other people off. to me profanities is not ‘angry’ words for the use in an outburst of anger. it allows me to enmesh into a particular culture, a specific conformity. And yes, I do as the Romans do, when it comes to military service.

So when will be a good time for you boys to cuss? That is a judgement call, there is no specific date, time, turn of the century, we all have to see if you boys knows and are mature enough to understand why you want to say what you said. Right now, it is not a brave thing to say it, it is not a cool thing to say it. You boys are not matured enough to know the purpose and function of profanities. It is a ‘play by the ear’ scenario.

I glad that so far, you 2 have a strong repulsion from such words. That is good. There is no need for its use at your age, and we shall have this discussion again from time to time, and see if we are ready to hear the 2 of your cuss like men, or boys.

First Publish June 3, 2015

Peace is Hard

Why is Aikido commonly known as the Art of Peace and Harmony?

First of all, we need to come to a level benchmark of what ‘Peace’ and ‘Harmony’ looks like, which shouldn’t be hard. Peace is the lack of violence in any form, period.

How difficult can that be?

Well, wait till you try it on the mat, on the dojo, with an unwilling partner, against orchestrated resistance, then all of our concept and romanticism of peace falls apart, we get disillusion, struggle and then take the very easy way out, resort to violence, anger and hate. ‘It’s his/her fault he didn’t cooperate!!!”

Now that I am taking a class regularly, I begin to see a deeper struggle, as teaching fellow Aikidokas becomes a challenge for my mindset. How do I teach, the waza that leads to a conflict resolution? It can lead to something deadly as well, I can show ‘killer’ moves, or one strike moves that will ‘neutralize’ the attacker. But all this means nothing if I cannot demonstrate peace, or I ‘kill’ my attacker.

So what is peace to me?

Being flexible, empathetic and see things from a variety of angle. We cannot be fixated with one way of doing things, that will lead to ‘your’ way and ‘my’ way which will cause a gap in opinions. and everyone will think ‘my’ way is better than ‘your’ way, and fight it out to find out who is left standing.

Of course as beginners, we only learn to do things in one specific way; ‘Aikido rolls like this.’ ‘We don’t do kicks in Aikido.’ We indoctrinate the new joiners with the dogmas of Aikido. because as a school, there is a style, curriculum and pedagogy. That is fine as we build the structure and form for our new Aikido students to learn, and become proficient in. It is a start, but it cannot be that way as we advance into the years or decades of Aikido practice, we must become more open to other forms, accept our limitations and humbly learn that we are not perfect, no matter how suave our moves are.

Also begin to adopt other forms, and use other styles, so that we become formless, and therefore, disenfranchise someone to attack our ‘form’. When we become formless, we are able to take on our attackers’ form and therefore we become our attacker, and our attacker will no longer have a form which they can attack.

This is the ultimate definition of peace.

So as I start to teach, the deeper lesson I learn is to make sure I impart the movements that gives us options, to not fight, and to be flexible so that we have a way out, and our partner have a way out. We need to really treasure peace, love and non-violence deeply. While we have enjoyed decades of peace, that deep dark thoughts of violence is just skin deep under our placid surface. We must do more to understand the evil in us, so that we can choose not to use them.

For peace to prevail, we must have options, choice and alternative. It is a blatant lie when one decides on a violent path and say ‘I have no choice.’ ‘You leave me no options.’ ‘I’m forced into this!’ There is always a choice, and we need to have that courage, and clarity to choose, bravely decide not to take physical harm as an accept course of actions.

Dialogue

That dialogue needs to happen in us, there is plenty of violence happening around us, and we cannot talk ourselves into thinking it is ok. We cannot resort to violence to stop violence. The hardest part for us to do is to talk and negotiate away from violence, discuss, and see the other person’s point of view, while keeping ours. We don’t lay down and die, nor do we fight to the death, we have to choose that fine middle path to make sure both prevail, especially in violent situations.

We can do it, as long as we continue our training in earnest, without malice or willfulness. Every time we train, we must always give our partners an option, by having options in our own movement. That choice allows us to resolve a difficult situation with both belligerents’ integrity, pride and ego intact. Peace is about no one having to lose, or win, big; life is a matter of compromise, that is no win/win, it is all about give and take.

Your Grands- The Awesomes

Dear Boys,

You have awesome grand parents. Period.

For your dad, he never knew his grand parents, both maternal and paternal. They died before I knew about them. You mum knew her grand parents and when I had the both of you, I knew I want the both of you to have wonderful memories about your ‘Grands’.

I can’t say the same for my parents side, as my parents and my history with them is mired in a messy controversy. Well, story of my life, at least that was until I got married and the 2 of you came along. Your mum’s parents, The Grands, as we fondly refer them as, are the Awesomes.

Your Gong Gong is awesome and so is your Ah Ma, they both doted on you like their own, even though in the strictest Chinese sense, you both are the ‘Lims’ grand children and carry my lineage. They have none of that, and loved you both tremendously, without conditions.

They would buy the best toys for you both for your birthdays and Christmas (although we do not celebrate it on a religious sense, but it was still an opportunity to get together for fun, joy and laughter.) Whatever you want, they will get for you, so much so that we were concerned about them spoiling you both.

There is always tensions in the way we want to bring you up and the way the Grands think we should bring you up. But that is what The Grands does, which many times run into conflict with The Parents. When I was a younger dad with a penchant to use the ‘rod’, I got into a rather heated argument with your Gong Gong. When I wanted to discipline you your Gong Gong physically carried you away from harm, me. Your Ah Ma cried, from the traumatic intensity of the quarrel. From then on I never want to discipline you both in their presence. We’ve all learned our limits and our boundaries from that incident.

It is important that you boys get to hang out with the Grands as often as possible, because I feel that their inputs into your lives are important in your building blocks to become responsible adults. You boys need to handle old folks, and the Grands are your hands on training. When you grow up, never get angry or impatient with old folks. When you are in your thirties, a busy executive, in a hurry to run errands, please don’t run over older folks that happen to road hog your way, think of them as your Grands. They are not in your way, without, you will not even have a way.

Your Grands are the ultimate liberals, in their abode you boys can pretty much do whatever you want and rule with impunity. There is no curfew, you boys sleep as early as 2am. You boys watched TV, ate all sorts of sweets and chocolates. Ice cream was a regular affair. Even when the Grands brought you boys out, you two had it good, ate at restaurants, Swensen’s is a common affair.

Tell your children stories and tales you had with your Grands, and when my time comes, I will have my share of legacy with you children.

You boys need to love your Grands as much as possible. Display affection, hug them, kiss them, and hold their hands. Let them know you appreciate them, let them know that you both, while taking them for granted, do reciprocate. They have pretty much seen it through their life, they do not need much now, they do not need to strive for a good job, they do not need to please their boss, climb the corporate ladder, all they need to to have their lives filled with the din both of you made, do things that makes them worry, mess things up so that they can clean it up after you. Let them feed you boys with yummy junks.

So go ahead, have fun with your Grands fill their lives with all your nonsense. do things with them that you cannot do with your parents. Let them have wonderful memories of you both, and please grow up with wonderful reminiscence of them. Tell your children stories and tales you had with your Grands, and when my time comes, I will have my share of legacy with you children.

First posted June 26, 2015

Collective Idiocy-Army story

bus buttons — _{picture sourced from google}

Dear Boys,

I want to share a story about ‘collective idiocy’ that involved your father.

When I was an Army recruit, my training camp was back in Pulau Tekong and when it was time for us to book in, we have to find our own way back to Commando Jetty. So when it was time for us to book in, it is no surprise that you will see many botak (bald-headed) recruits on the same bus, since we are all booking in at the same time.

So this fateful night, we were on the bus, and heading towards a common destination, we all have to alight at the same bus-stop and of course we need to press the bell so that the bus driver will know there are passengers who were alighting.

What happened was a matter of group-think towards collective stupidity.

We all, the recruits in the bus, knew we are all alighting at the same stop, and we all waited for one of us to press the bell, and anyone of us can, but no one did!

So we looked wide eyed as the bus zipped past our stop and everyone started pressing the bell in frantic. Too late, the bus driver simply ignored us, and take it that the bell we pressed was for the next stop.

So the bus alighted at the next stop and the whole group of us has to dumb, dumb walk back to the earlier bus stop and towards Commando Jetty. No one said a thing about the incident, we didn’t have to, we all made a fool out of ourselves, and now thinking back more than 21 years later, the whole incident seems petty hilarious.

First posted June 18, 2015

Who do you bring to the dojo?

It’s not about your girlfriend, your friend, or anyone else out there.

It is about you. who do you bring to the dojo? do you bring a martial artist to the dojo? Do you bring a dancer to the dojo? or do you bring a meek mouse?

We may have different hats to wear in our daily lives, but there is certainly a dominant one, or a couple. It could be a role where we are most emotionally attached to, or a role we pay the most emotional dividend to. The more emotive the cause, the more dominant the emotional attachment.

If you are a cop, going to take Aikido, chances are you are looking at the art with a value of self defense, through a cop-eye. If you are a victim of a bully, you will either think of the art as a form of salvation. or it also can be a form of justification for your role as a victim; you go to the dojo to get bullied, just like how you are bullied outside of the dojo.

These are very powerful subconscious. it governs everything we do. If you have a militant psyche. even if you jog, you will think of the activity as a form of fitness to help you get away from trouble. It is not merely a form of fitness. If you are a cyclist, you will go to the gym in hopes of improving your cycling fitness.

Therefore, we will always come up against weakness, against limitations. because we do not see thing as it is, but we see thing as it should be. Of course if we see Aikido from the eyes of a triathlete, it looks like valueless. If we approach a piano, learning to play a guitar, the results can be predictable, certainly both are musical instruments, but we cannot full milk the instrument in question by making another impression fit onto it. A piano is a piano, period. Your understanding of a guitar helps, but please put it down when you are going to play a piano.

Of course the curriculum of Aikido is pretty much ‘dead’, it is up to us as students to bring it to life, and in order for that to happen, we need to let Aikido embody us first, instead of us trying to embody Aikido. Put down our soldier, policeman, nurse, pickpocket, teacher, student, man, woman outside, come in and experience Aikido, as it is.

First posted September 17, 2012

theaikidad

Aikido, Parenting and Everything in Between

Month: April 2022

The Old Rain Tree

Profanities

Peace is Hard

Your Grands- The Awesomes

Collective Idiocy-Army story

Who do you bring to the dojo?

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