Raising a "Normal" Child - Learning to be Successful

My previous post introduced you to my family's horrifying discovery that we are not perfect. As parents, we made mistakes in the education and social upbringing of our son.Once strong willed, he was now fraught with anxiety issues and had difficulties engaging in social activities at school. The next phase of our lives involved acceptance, communication, and better expectations.

Anxiety can be frustrating

My son and I started having afternoon "conversations" where he would tell me about his day from going to school to coming home. At first he did not want to tell me about his "bad days" because he didn't want me to be mad. But, since I got called or emailed practically every day about his behavior, he learned he couldn't hide "bad days" from me. I also taught him, by being calm and nonjudgmental, that I accepted he would have "bad days," but this did not make him a "bad person." He had a hard time articulating his feelings, and many times his answers to questions were "I don't know." So we worked on finding the right words to describe various moments of his day.

Communication and Kendo, Part 2

image copyright Darya Klevetova

In my last post about communication and its relationship to kendo, I talked about one basic point of kendo - it is the art of self-improvement. Today, I want to introduce a second point and how it relates to communication. This is called "Ki-ken-tai-ichi" and means (as close to translation as I can get) bringing together your mind and body through your sword.

Remember when I said that kendo is not all about hitting your opponent, but how you look and sound while you hit? Ki-ken-tai-ichi encompasses that principal. Any untrained person can pick up a shinai (bamboo sword), watch a YouTube video or read a "how-to" book, and copy the moves to make hits. What you can't learn from videos and books is how to focus your inner self into the strike - making the sword an extension of your body. I can whack a target. I can scream my head off as I hit the target. But I do not commit myself to the hit if my entire being is not IN the strike.

Think of it in terms of the sport's original life-and-death beginnings. When two swordsmen squared off, the natural response is a self-preservation one. No one wants to die, but in this moment, one will stand and one will fall. (I am so hearing Optimus Prime right now...Oh, sorry.) The question then is, who will be the one left standing? The answer is the one who committed himself to making his strike be the killing blow. His opponent would then have to do one of two things; block the strike (which, against a well-trained opponent, might be too late) or also commit to a killing strike (again, being a reactionary decision, his chances are slim).

Copyright Michel Gillet Photography

Today, we don't normally go around carrying swords with the intent of striking people down. But in kendo, the sword still holds great importance in a kendoka's* life. In kendo, your opponent isn't a stationary object. It is another person with just as much intent to commit to a strike as you. If your sword has not become a part of your body, you will not hit your target with the "killing blow." You will be slower because the sword is nothing more than added weight in your hands. The strike will not be true because it is not connected to your eyes. Your self-preservation mechanism will kick in because you will doubt your ability to hit the mark, making your feet hesitate and lose rhythm with your hands.

To persevere, your mind and body must be one with the sword.

I sat my son down one evening after a class. He was especially upset because one of his sensei (instructor) kept correcting him on his swing and footwork. The sensei wasn't paying nearly as much attention to the other students (in his mind) and so he concluded that he must be horrible at kendo. To make it worse on him, this wasn't just any sensei. He was THE sensei, head instructor of the dojo.

And I had this particular sensei as well when I first started. So I drew upon my experience to help my son understand what was really going on. If this sensei even bothered to give you his personal attention, then he saw potential - he saw someone worth his time to teach. My son should be proud that this sensei took the time to help him correct his swing or his footwork. It also meant that he should work harder to achieve Ki-ken-tai-ichi. Once he made the sword a part of his body, his swing and footwork would all fall into place because he would become completely aware of his body and his movements. And his sensei would "stop picking on him."

My son's biggest problem at the time was his habit of holding a defensive stance when facing an opponent. And in kendo, defense doesn't get you points. Don't misunderstand, defense is important to strategy when facing an opponent. But my son uses defensive moves so often it becomes predictable. It causes him to focus on what the opponent will do rather than what he can do to the opponent, and so he loses his concentration momentarily when the opponent strikes, creating dissonance between his swing and his footwork. His sensei would stop him during practice and correct him, or provide examples of how he could move better. When his second taikai (tournament) came around, he was almost sure he didn't want to participate again.

My son is not just a defensive kendoka. He is a defensive communicator. He looks for any indication from others that they are about to "strike" him with a harsh criticism, tattle on him, or some provide some other put-down. Granted, his own actions will at times warrant a word from his teacher or an "I feel" message from a classmate. But because of his personality (borderline type A, ugh) and early years of social anxiety, his interactions with most kids and adults tend to be reactionary, he waits for them to make the first move.

Thankfully, my son has mostly outgrown his defensive nature, although it still pops up once in a while.  Back to his second taikai, THE sensei spoke with him after his match and again corrected him on his footwork and to be less hesitant with his strikes. And my son stood there and looked squarely at his sensei, nodded intently, and said he would work harder. His body language showed sincerity, his voice was clear. In that moment, he was in Ki-ken-tai-ichi. He brought together his mind and body through his verbal "sword."

His sword and his communication skills are one and the same. In his defensive posture, his words are hesitant, sometimes mumbled or nonexistent.Once he's gotten over the initial defensive stance, his words are clear and easily understood. He's getting better, though, and soon he will be able to walk up to someone, determine the words he needs to say, and say them with conviction. He will take in other people's words and effortlessly decide how best to respond. And he will be able to let the words flow through him naturally as he and his "opponent" trade words in fun, in anger, in opinion, and in knowledge.

*Kendoka is a person who practices the art of kendo

Communication and Kendo: Part 1

image from www.kusuyama.jp

Watching my son participate in his second taikai (kendo tournament), and taking fourth place, was very exciting for two reasons. One, it cemented his belief that he could be good at kendo, making him want to continue. Two, seeing him compete showed me how much he had grown not just within the sport, but with communication in his everyday life. To help you see how I made this connection, I need to break kendo down into basic points, starting with this - Kendo is NOT an art of self-defense, it is an art of self-improvement.

If kendo was all about whacking your opponent, tournaments would go a lot faster. Anyone who has watched a taikai match will know that there could be dozens of strikes, all of which look good to a casual spectator, before a point is awarded. If you've never seen a match, YouTube is full of examples, like this one. In order to get the point, the attacker must not only hit his or her opponent in the right place, but must also look and sound good doing it.

Wait. Huh? How are you supposed to look and sound good swinging a bamboo sword and yelling wildly at the top of your lungs?

Image via Wikimedia Commons

There are three things a kendoka (one who practices kendo) must do when making a strike. First the strike must hit one of four places: the head, the wrist, the waist, or the throat. But not only must he hit these areas, he must make the hit with only the top portion of the shinai (bamboo sword). If he hits with any other part of the shinai, the point is not awarded. But even with a correct hit, he still won't get the point without proper footwork, proper stance, or proper follow-through. His feet have to move right and the way his body moves through the hit cannot be sloppy. And even if he manages to strike and move correctly, if he's not screaming out his charge with conviction (this is called ki-ai), well, no point. This is why good kendo matches are loud. It also makes one think: with all this having to worry about proper this and correct that, how does anyone actually manage to get a point?

And isn't that kind of the same question one would ask about effective communication? It's not just about having something to say. It's also about how you say something so the other person understands where you're coming from. If you don't choose your words correctly, or have the right body language, or use a proper tone of voice, then your not going to make your point.

So, back to my son. He wanted to practice kendo because I did. When he first picked up my shinai and swung it around at three years old, I decided to get him his own and gave him informal lessons. I first taught him that the shinai was not a toy, he couldn't "teach" any of his friends, and the only person he could hit was me, and I had to be in gear. What I was really teaching him was to be mindful of who he was interacting with at a given time and adjust to each situation. His sword became his feelings, and he had to adjust his feelings to properly respond to different situations: when a classmate made him mad, when he got in trouble for something he didn't understand, or when he was told to do something he didn't want to do (like homework).

Well-loved shinai

When he was finally old enough to take formal lessons, he quickly learned that while he may think it's fun to practice with mom, it's entirely different interacting with a real instructor. Although I tried to prepare him with the basics, his footwork was everywhere, his swings were wild, and if he even bothered with ki-ai, you probably still wouldn't have heard him. His teachers were always correcting him, and he would get discouraged because it felt like he couldn't do anything right.

And when he got into bogu (kendo armor), he also realized it wasn't nearly as much fun being the one getting hit. During practice drills he would get upset because he was getting hit more often than the other way around. There were times when he would decide that he didn't want to do kendo anymore because he wasn't good at it. It wasn't that he wasn't trying, it was just that there was so much to focus on! But with subtle encouragement and maybe a few not-so-subtle "suck it up" commentaries, I kept him going.

His initial struggles with kendo were a mirror-image of his every-day life. He had a hard time focusing on his work and would get distracted easily, and his teachers would have to get him back on task. He was emotional and easily upset, feeling like everybody was against him. But when he needed to speak up for himself, he couldn't bring himself to do it. He just wasn't good enough to make friends or be a successful student. He wasn't good at communicating his feelings.

When he entered his first taikai, he lost in the first round. I braced myself to comfort a child who would be upset with his loss. But what a surprise I got! Yes he was disappointed that he lost, but he was smiling and excited that he didn't let his opponent get him on the first hit. We talked about what he did right, what he could do to improve, and how much he could learn by going up against an opponent.

First Taikai

Over the next year, he continued to improve. His strikes were faster and more accurate, he read his opponent's moves a little better, and although his footwork was still a little sloppy, he made up for it in a strong and confident ki-ai. Seeing this improvement come together in his second taikai made me realize he had made improvements elsewhere in his life. He is still distractable (hello, he's a boy), but his self-esteem has grown and he is more likely to speak up when needed. He is better able to communicate effectively in various situations, whether it's with an adult, a classmate, a friend, or a stranger.

At his next taikai, his face was beaming with an ear-to-ear grin when he received his fourth-place trophy. And it should, because that trophy was also the proof that he was good enough to get his point across. Kendo, the art of self-improvement, helped with that.