Context: This is part of the cycle of talks given in monthly Recollection. For preparations, I now type out a rough draft of my talk ahead of time and then on the day follow --roughly-- what the draft says. It was a slight improvement over whatever I had been doing before. Anyway I was happy with it and decide to publish it on blog for posterity, so here it is. It's not an exact transcript of what I actually said in the talk, though.
Way 22: Be firm. Be virile. Be a man. And then… be a saint
So if you
have been following our young professional men’s talks for this year, you would
notice that this whole year has been about masculinity. It’s courtesy of
Alvin, you can thank him for that! Don’t worry, it will be over soon.
For talks
like these, usually as the speaker I would give a little of my own perspective
on things. I don’t know how much of a typical guy I am (probably am not) or how
much I fit into St. Josemaria’s ideal of things (probably would do terribly). I
certainly don’t feel equipped to speak on behalf of all men, or even men in
general, men being the amazing diverse segment of the population in society (I
hope you are not all the same here! Please tell me I’m not wrong!). But there
is an entry point I have which explores the idea of masculinity – and how
through being men we can become a saint. I’m going to share about martial arts
classes.
I started
martial arts somewhere like 6 years ago. I had just moved to Cleveland, and you
know what it’s like moving from a safe place like Singapore to a place like
Cleveland – it’s like a junior version of Detroit. It’s run by gangs – believe
me when I say while I was staying there, the mayor of Cleveland had a grandson
in the street gangs, and they lived in the same house. You come to a place like
this and you have no survival instinct whatsoever. You have to learn to watch
your back and not put your hoodie up and not listen to music and to keep your
back to the wall and all that extra shit that no one in Singapore worries about
but everyone in Cleveland does as naturally as drinking lead-laced water.
For the
first 3 months staying there, I was scared of my own shadow. I was basically
drowning in cortisol. I imagined every day when I leave the house I would be a
target of a hate crime or a robbery. So
it’s in these conditions which pushed me to take martial arts classes,
specifically Krav Maga (the sort that makes you kick your attacker where it
hurts). I wasn’t looking to become manly man or some other bullshit Man trend
you might have seen online – my motives were purely for survival.
So the dojo
I went to, a man named Amit ran it. He started out working as a nurse in
Chicago. He got into martial arts after he got mugged. In his team were Heinz,
Brian, Jerry, and other illustrious trainers. They are the most amiable,
friendly, welcoming bunch you could have met or expected from a dojo in
Cleveland. They built up over a years a pretty solid community with the
classmates. And this is the plot twist in the story: the classes solved
the problem of my security, not because (well partly because) I can defend
myself with absolute violence when presented (nuts-kicking maybe not a perfect
defense from bullets), but because being with the community helped me become
open to people around me, to be trustful in the good of other people, and to
treat others with generosity and respect
And
that is, I think, an important part of being Man
 |
| Humans of KMC |
Haven’t you heard about the “loneliness epidemic” in men and heard advice that people need to go out and “touch grass”. Let me add on to it
Touch
grass means finding community
So much of
the popular narrative about being manly now is about being aloof, being
superior to others, treating people below you poorly… I learned the opposite in
martial arts.
So in
Amit’s dojo the culture of high-powered individuals sizing each other up and
tearing each others down did not exist – he has had a pretty steady stream of
newcomers, people who are hungry to learn things. If you have ever been hungry
to learn things (It would be strange if you never felt it), you would know that
open-mindedness and humility are essential. It is impossible to learn anything
if you are arrogant.
This
relates to our Christian virtues of docility and obedience, which
we throw around so often. Did you think that being meek rather than cocky would
make you more manly? But do you also realize we depend on the strength of
others, not just on ourselves, and more importantly, supernaturally we depend
on the strength of God.
In
humility, it has been said that it is not thinking less of yourself, and
thinking of yourself less. In class specifically, one puts aside any worries
and insecurities about the self. Am I good enough? Nonsense! Of course you’re
not good enough, that’s why you are in class. Pick yourself up and be happy
that you are here. You are allowed to make mistakes in this space. Take care of
that and you have been liberated; you can think about where your arms go and
how your hip turns and finally get good at things. In addition, if you are
sparring or practicing moves with a partner, the empathy engine gets some
exercise in you also. Would you lay down your life for a friend? Maybe
not die for him or her, but you are getting in tune to their welfare. Don’t
punch their nose! Don’t kick their nuts too hard! It’s not about winning or
your ego getting soothed. We are focused on getting good and we support each
other through it.
You can be
a great scholar at theology and know about virtues and morals and so on, but
you can also live your life knowing everything by theory and nothing in
practice – know that just by getting your asses moving, you can learn
something very very quickly. And as Fr. Daniel Berrigan said, “Your
faith is rarely where your head is at and rarely where your heart is at. Your
faith is where your ass is at! Inside what commitments are you sitting? Within
what reality do you anchor yourself?” This is the part which I comment that
exercise is very good, and very integral to being a Man. We are not minds
trapped in fleshy coffins on Earth, which is the heresy of Rene Descartes, but
our minds and our bodies are both us. Exercising the body helps you
exercise the mind, and also helps exercise the soul. A good Catholic Man stays
true to our beliefs in anthropology and leaves no aspect behind. The takeaway,
to paraphrase Fr. Berrigan, is to get your asses up and moving. It will
do you a lot of good, in addition to the communal aspects that you might not
get in all forms of sport. Wasn’t it Paul who kept alluding to sports in his
letters? (I do not fight like boxer beating the air, and all that) He
knows what he’s talking about.
What became different after martial arts?
I actually don’t think Cleveland became a safer place while
I was there, one year in. Covid happened, there was hate crime targeting Asians
because apparently we eat bats or some shit, BLM riots happened so Downtown
Cleveland was very trashed, but the strange thing was that I felt safer
during this time, and this change could only be interior (obviously). It was
not just the assurance that if someone tried to stab me I can kick himbs nuts
and run away in under ten seconds, but rather confidence, self confidence
which put me into a state of security and ease which also helped the people
around me achieve the same state. It was very late into the classes that I
learned that looking too cautious and mistrustful also makes you a target,
and to avoid it, you have to look like you belong. I didn’t have to pretend; I absolutely
belonged to Cleveland by then; it was home! Since it was home; I began to
feel responsibility towards it; the welfare of my friends and
acquaintances became things I can help with, whereas when I was feeling unsafe,
I didn’t even have time to think about those. I joined the homeless ministry
(Labre) and went to places I knew were unsafe to get to our friends sleeping
rough. Coming across people in all walks of life dispelled my fears on the evils
in man. Whatever their evils, at least out in the streets, most people are
good, and are just living out their lives in peace.
So this is the end. If you feel like you need to move yo
asses but don’t like violence (like really), you can join a dance class
instead. I didn’t talk about dance because I don’t dance much. But it feels
like it can work. Do any of you dance? Ok, the rest of you can go and talk to
him. Taa now.
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