Here is an audio recording of Leadership: Mastery of the Three Domains, a presentation by Richard Strozzi-Heckler to the Ultimate Men’s Summit.
In his talk, Strozzi-Heckler suggests that the blending move in aikido is an evolutionary adaptation that provides an alternative to the “factory loaded” responses of fight or flight or appeasement. And he goes on to suggest that this blend is analogous to deep listening and seeing the world from the other person’s perspective. Learning to blend as an alternative to the habitual patterns of opposing threats “shifts the cellular – maybe even the DNA – pattern of response.”
The notion of blending as being about seeing the world from another person’s perspective was not new to me and it resonates nicely with so much of what I am learning about how the brain works, mirror neurons, empathy, and so forth. But the notion that blending is actually an evolutionary adaptation to our instinctual response patterns is an exciting new understanding for me. It helps me to recognize that my persistent reactivity to incoming stimulus is more than just my old life-long instinctual pattern of taking care of myself. And, there is an available alternative – the blend.
Virtually every aikido technique has two forms, amote and ura (also called irme and tenkan), triangle and circle. The first is direct entry while the second is the blend. The first is that instinctual fight response (I guess that aikido technique does not focus on the flight alternative – get the hell out of there) and the second is this evolutionary adaptation.
Last week in my aikido training, Sensei asked me which of the two forms was my preferred means of responding to a mixed two-handed attack. Immediately, I was able to recognize my preference for amote (direct entry). When asked why, I also immediately responded that it was more instinctual and gave me less time to think (and thereby mess myself up). This preference for direct entry reaction is typical of all of my aikido techniques. And, as always, aikido seems to reflect life and I can see how much relearning I need to do in all areas of my life at the cellular (perhaps even DNA) level to be able to override the my instinctual impulse to fight with the more advance evolutionary adaptation of blending.
Ah, this is why I continue to practice and why I need to remind myself to be patient. I am working to overcome patterns that run far deeper than my lifetime of experience. And the potential consequences are significant – my little contribution to an important evolutionary change. Seen from that perspective, feeling foolish and having my body thrown around seem like a small price to pay.
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