“I wanna see big apes out there!” I shout to a group of 10 year-olds. Bare feet, peeking out from underneath bright white karate gi’s, pound on the wooden floor.
“Ooh-ooh-ooh” they intone, lower and deeper than their usual squeaky voices. With fists thumping their chests, they make their way across the training floor and line up in front of a punching bag, ready to show their “ape fists.”
I believe in animals. Not in the sense that we should refrain from eating them or wearing their skins on our feet. I believe in their energy, the lessons they can teach us.
I train and teach a rare and beautiful Indonesian martial art called Poekoelan Tjimindie Tulen. The movements and fighting are inspired by four animals: the monkey, crane, tiger and snake. As we train, we imagine the steaming jungles where these animals reside. We invoke the confidence of the ape, the piercing, single-mindedness of the snake, the vision of the crane, the relentlessness of the tiger.
I live a long way from the roots of this art. The Studio’s light-filled brick building in Oakland, California is surrounded by cement and doughnut shops, with nary a monkey or tiger in sight. However, the energies of these animals join me whenever I train. As a crane, I make myself light, rising above the nagging anxieties of my days as an 8th grade English teacher. The energy of the ape, used in class when I face a particularly formidable opponent, gives me the courage to confront a resistant co-worker or take a call from an irate parent. Apes never worry about looking silly or offending someone with a mean look. I ask my students, “Have you ever seen an insecure ape? A hesitant snake?”
I came to the practice of martial arts eight years ago full of questions and doubts, wanting to get fit, to feel strong, to join a community. But to physically fight? I’d been taught to be non-violent, to use “I” statements, to defuse anger with words. In college, many of my female friends enrolled in women’s self-defense classes. I resisted this physical response, preferring the theory to the praxis. I wanted to discuss the ways violence affected women, not join it.
Today I don’t train a martial art to reverse the violence I see around me. Unlike practitioners who came before me, I won’t use these skills to defend a village or fight in combat. In fact, I set my intention every day that I will never have to use the physical lessons I train. But even so, I have learned to physically defend myself, in large part through watching the ways in which animals fight and protect their young. Perhaps more importantly, learning to fight has taught me to defend myself in ways far beyond the physical.
I’m not as concerned with a fear of failure. I might volunteer to take on a challenging project at work, knowing that the power I feel in the physical training is within me, to call upon when needed. I don’t let the fear of someone’s negative response derail me. I may confront a neighbor whose dog has kept me up at night, tell the man behind me at the ATM that he’s too close or approach that colleague who makes that racist joke at happy hour.
Animals don’t enjoy a fight, but they don’t let fear paralyze them either. It is precisely the knowledge of their own ability to fight that sets them free. I never knew just how powerful that fear was until I began to live without it.
-Abby Skrivan
Studio Naga
www.studionaga.com
I believe in animals. Not in the sense that we should refrain from eating them or wearing their skins on our feet. I believe in their energy, the lessons they can teach us.
I train and teach a rare and beautiful Indonesian martial art called Poekoelan Tjimindie Tulen. The movements and fighting are inspired by four animals: the monkey, crane, tiger and snake. As we train, we imagine the steaming jungles where these animals reside. We invoke the confidence of the ape, the piercing, single-mindedness of the snake, the vision of the crane, the relentlessness of the tiger.
I live a long way from the roots of this art. The Studio’s light-filled brick building in Oakland, California is surrounded by cement and doughnut shops, with nary a monkey or tiger in sight. However, the energies of these animals join me whenever I train. As a crane, I make myself light, rising above the nagging anxieties of my days as an 8th grade English teacher. The energy of the ape, used in class when I face a particularly formidable opponent, gives me the courage to confront a resistant co-worker or take a call from an irate parent. Apes never worry about looking silly or offending someone with a mean look. I ask my students, “Have you ever seen an insecure ape? A hesitant snake?”
I came to the practice of martial arts eight years ago full of questions and doubts, wanting to get fit, to feel strong, to join a community. But to physically fight? I’d been taught to be non-violent, to use “I” statements, to defuse anger with words. In college, many of my female friends enrolled in women’s self-defense classes. I resisted this physical response, preferring the theory to the praxis. I wanted to discuss the ways violence affected women, not join it.
Today I don’t train a martial art to reverse the violence I see around me. Unlike practitioners who came before me, I won’t use these skills to defend a village or fight in combat. In fact, I set my intention every day that I will never have to use the physical lessons I train. But even so, I have learned to physically defend myself, in large part through watching the ways in which animals fight and protect their young. Perhaps more importantly, learning to fight has taught me to defend myself in ways far beyond the physical.
I’m not as concerned with a fear of failure. I might volunteer to take on a challenging project at work, knowing that the power I feel in the physical training is within me, to call upon when needed. I don’t let the fear of someone’s negative response derail me. I may confront a neighbor whose dog has kept me up at night, tell the man behind me at the ATM that he’s too close or approach that colleague who makes that racist joke at happy hour.
Animals don’t enjoy a fight, but they don’t let fear paralyze them either. It is precisely the knowledge of their own ability to fight that sets them free. I never knew just how powerful that fear was until I began to live without it.