Habits:
We all have them. Some good, some bad, and like pages of a notebook we add and subtract them as we travel through life never asking the most fundamental of questions; “How did I come by this habit? What purpose does this habit serve? Why am I holding onto it if it doesn’t do anything (good) for me?”
The answers to those questions, like life, are both easy and hard at the same time. I think to figure out the answers you have to first go to the basics and define the issue or problem. Dictionary.com lists habit as; “an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary.” Three words in that definition stood out to me immediately,acquired, and almost involuntary with emphasis on almost. When we acquire a habit, by definition it usually serves at least one purpose if not more but over time we all change and those habits may not continue to serve us as originally intended. An example that comes readily to mind is when I began working as an undercover law enforcement officer with a prior department. Very quickly, I habituated myself into an almost hyperactive state during which seconds after walking into a room, I could pick out who was probably carrying, potential physical weaknesses of those there, tactical advantage space to get to if shit broke bad, exit routes, and the number of people in the room including those behind me. While developing this habit kept me alive, when you keep that hyper-vigilant state going, it becomes harder and harder to turn it off and begins to carry over to your “off duty” life and you find yourself doing things you didn’t previously do; you develop “moving target syndrome” (never stay or go to the same place too many times to make it harder to hit you), lack of sleep because you can’t shut down, more prone to violence when not in “cover” mode, the leeching of the two sides/personas together, the list goes on and on. I think the reason for many of us who find these things happening are not only the complete immersion in the “role” we are supposed to be playing but quite simply, we don’t want to get dead. By that standard, the habits we acquired worked for the need that arose but, the human body being what it is, can only take so much before a crash shows on the horizon. The trick, I think, is to make sure you have someone you trust to keep an eye on you and bring you back down; violently even if necessary, but it’s our decision to listen and adjust which is much harder than it sound (remember the almost involuntary part?).
The most important part of the equation seems to be the process ofhow we develop the habit and how we allow it to be expressed. A few weeks ago, I was having a conversation with a fellow student on this topic that he had initially asked our Shidoshi regarding how to always be aware and ready to defend ourselves and others; a few of the phrases he used took me back over the years to when I almost crashed and burned developing those habits and we talked for a couple of minutes. The most important thing I could tell him? RELAX! Instead of putting the idea in the forefront of your mind which causes you to tense up (which actually makes it harder to react/respond by the way), keep the possibility of something bad happening in the back of your mind and flow with the principles that go with it like keeping tactical space, moving with the attacker but dictating the action based on what attack he/she uses and leading them from there but most important, STAY IN YOUR OWN SKIN! To understand that concept, try walking around in a “pissed off I’m the badest SOB on the block” state for an hour radiating menace and see how you exhausted you feel afterward. If you stay in a relaxed but ready state, it’s much easier to maintain but a harder habit to acquire. An easy way to spot this attitude is to look at new vs. veteran police officers or some soldiers who have already been through combat. In the latter, you will find prime examples of both states unfortunately due to the lack of care for these hero’s returning home but that’s a subject for another time. Ultimately, this entire post was expressed much more elegantly to me last week which I’ll try and close with. In the last year and a half, I’ve had 4 head surgeries (two brain, one craniotomy, one cranioplasty) which sidelined me from the dojo for a couple months; with few exceptions I attended but only observed to learn/osmose what I could until last week I went back into class as a participant, scar from right ear to left eye, stitches and all. At the end of class we pay our fee and write our name in the attendance book. When it came time for me to write my name, I had a very un-Zen like moment and wrote my name big and bold, proud of myself for continuing to train and being “back.” A few hours later, I told my Shidoshi this and his response is what I will leave you with; “The book is there for you to write in whenever you want.”
