One Former Victim Finds the Pulse of Power in Aikido
By: Olivia Fermi
Tags: Women, Terry Dobson, Aikido, Power, Feminism

Feeling safe and easy, I was walking home along Broadway, looking up past the tall stone and cement buildings at the moon. Then I felt someone following me. I tried to ignore the feeling, to continue back to my apartment on West 110th St in Manhattan. The closer I got to my home, the more scared I was and the harder it was to pretend to be normal. I started to feel like a victim. Foolishly, I entered the building. There in the lobby, the man who had been following me lurched for my throat and I screamed.

I was 20 years old, in the midst of that beautiful and terrifying phase of youthful femininity. Men always seemed stronger and more dominant than we young women and the wrong kind of male attention was a threat. Backed up against the mailboxes, I stood frozen and screaming, the man’s hands around my neck, but not yet squeezing my neck. His threat. My neck. The seconds flew by. No one came.

Then a man in a security guard’s uniform walked by a window and saw us. Before the guard could make it into the building, the man had seen him and escaped. I didn’t know about the guard until he saved me — just with his presence. During that time, in the late 1970s, when crime rates were high, I learned, it was common for buildings to pool their resources and hire protection.

As a kid, I was sassy, argumentative, and disrespectful of authority. Being attacked like that shook me, intensifying the alienation I already felt. I hadn’t even had the confidence to turn around and go back to Broadway, where the lights were so bright at night you could read a street sign from a block away. Where stores were open, where I could have found shelter, rather than becoming a victim.

I thought I knew how to protect myself, but did I? What did I really know about power?

Not too long after, I was lucky to read The Silent Pulse by George Leonard. The pulse he described is a rhythm that runs through all life, all existence, and through which we can reconnect. At the end of the book, Leonard recommended aikido as a way to cultivate connection with the silent pulse. I’d never heard of such a thing before — a Japanese martial art dedicated to world peace. Aikido is about harmonizing and focusing conflicting energies for the well-being of all. Leonard’s descriptions of the flowing movements of aikido awoke my imagination.

In 1979, I entered an aikido dojo for the first time. A dojo is a place dedicated to practicing a particular martial art. I was excited to be embarking on a transformational journey. I wanted to feel more focused and certain of myself and hoped, that as I matured, I would become more helpful to others.

On the front wall of the dojo was a photo of Morihei Ueshiba (1883–1969), O Sensei (great teacher), aikido’s founder, and, alongside it, a weapons rack. Ueshiba developed aikido in the early 20th century and launched it into the world after the destruction wrought by and upon his country during World War II. Usually, the rack consists of horizontally mounted swords and staffs. But in our dojo, the top one wasn’t a sword, wasn’t straight, nor was it sharp. It was a twisting, bent stick, that our living teacher Terry Dobson Sensei (1937–1992) had found and placed there.

Caring short of Terry Dobson Sensei explaining and demonstrating ‘takemusu’ (Japanese for protection).

I loved it when Terry, a big bear of a man, would take the stick off the rack and demonstrate moves with it, as his imaginary practice partner. He told us to look at the twists and bends of the branch as reflecting the motions of life, the motions we learned in attacking and throwing each other. He was a natural storyteller, sharing his own stories of being challenged, all the while, illustrating universal human challenges. He showed us how to be receptive like the stick is, like life is, with its pulse, its circular and spiral kinds of movements, creating harmony out of conflict.

For me, the stick was and is emblematic of his care, embodied in word and deed. I feel grateful to Terry for specifically reminding the men to take care of the women so that we could all be safe. He often said he wanted us to care for each other so that we could all keep practicing together.

The stick also taught awareness. We had to be aware of everything around us so that we could cross the street to avoid a conflict. Aikido is not about winning, it’s about safely protecting both the would-be attacker and the one receiving the attack.

Moving with the pulse of life

I eagerly looked forward to practice times, for Terry was speaking to a more real place in me no one had before. Around him, my sass evaporated. Instead, I felt genuine respect and affection towards him. In my crude way, I was beginning to let go of some of my authority issues.

Surprisingly, along with attacking, throwing, and rolling, under Terry’s direction, I was happy to learn to bow. From the outside, bowing down had always looked weak to me. Looking back, I see I was confused as a kid, that I had it backward — and that much of our dominant culture does too. We’ve lost connection to practices that cultivate focus, humility, and a realistic sense of situations — like bowing does.

Entering the dojo, our first bow was to O Sensei. We also bowed each time we stepped onto the mat, symbolically leaving behind any extraneous concerns and embracing our practice with complete focus. After those two standing bows, we dropped to our knees each time Terry gave instruction. Still on our knees, we bowed to him in thanks and to our partner, before standing up to practice what he’d demonstrated. When practice was complete, we stood in thanks, bowed, and stepped off the mat.

Bowing protects the practice, keeps us mindful, and in our bodies so we don’t get hurt. Done with a proper spirit, bowing offers purification, bringing value and attention to practice, in a profound way that the West has lacked. My mind learned to quiet, slowly I learned to gather my energy and to be in my body instead of my thoughts.

I am petite, small-boned, and prone to clumsiness. I knew I’d never use the actual techniques in a street situation. But Terry was teaching a lot more than technique. It was easy for me to see he could punch someone and do real damage — he just looked like a big, imposing, white guy. Yet, mysteriously, Terry had a humility about him, didn’t show off or play dominance games. He demonstrated the throws with simple potency and modeled a new way of being in life, where compassionate grace and power moved in harmony.

Each of the aikido practices changed me. We worked with the belly as the center for physical movement, so that I became more grounded, developing a keener awareness of all activity around me. My body got stronger and more flowing. We learned to take falls by spinning and rolling. We learned to blend with our attacking practice partner by turning powerfully and gracefully to embrace their attack, which then gave us the opening to disarm it, without causing further injury.

We enhanced our power with kiai, a short shout from the core, that’s a strong pulse of sound and energy. To me, a true kiai has three important aspects. Kiai focuses us under threat, readies the body for action, and is itself a dynamic, natural movement.

Connecting to my power

I studied with Terry for about 9 months and then moved to Amherst, MA. One time, hitchhiking, I had a ride in a stranger’s car. After a few minutes, he started creeping me out, talking about sex in a low ambiguous voice. There I was sitting next to a male I could no longer trust, in his car, buckled into his seat belt. Cornered, getting quieter and quieter, not knowing what to do. Then suddenly, from some hidden place in my being, a true kiai burst forth, as a powerful, “NO!” This guy, a big hulk of a man, suddenly looked shaken. I told him where to stop and when to let me out of the car, which he did.

So many things I live now began back then in the dojo. The two threats, the first one where I succumbed and the second one where I protected myself, showed me how much aikido had become a part of me. I was starting to be different in the world. Though I couldn’t yet know the full potential of it to continue to transform my life, the silent pulse was starting to connect me with the pulse of healthy power, healthy boundaries, and a sense of healthy personal space. It was the beginning of my healing journey.