There’s a story famous among the USAmericans who practice the martial art of aikido [合氣道 the way of meeting/harmonizing energy]. It may be apt today as it is about an incident of violence on public transit, something like the situation on the train with Jordan Neely and not like it at all.
“At one station the doors opened, and suddenly the quiet afternoon was shattered by a man bellowing at the top of his lungs — yelling violent, obscene, incomprehensible curses. Just as the doors closed the man, still yelling, staggered into our car. He was big, drunk, and dirty. He wore laborer’s clothing. His front was stiff with dried vomit. His eyes bugged out, a demonic, neon red. His hair was crusted with filth. Screaming, he swung at the first person he saw, a woman holding a baby. The blow glanced off her shoulder, sending her spinning into the laps of an elderly couple. It was a miracle that the baby was unharmed.”
Already in the car is Terry Dobson, one of the earliest USAmerican students of aikido. He’s six feet, 225 pounds and training eight hours every day for the last three years in a martial art that does not have competitions and does not fight, that the founder, with whom Dobson is studying, calls the Art of Peace. It is a martial art of creating peace, moving so all members of a conflict can reach resolution without harm. Although a wrist lock or two along the way might not be out of the question.
Dobson sees this as an opportunity to use his skills in the real world, outside the dojo, justified by the drunk’s dangerous and offensive behavior. He stands up, the drunk notices him, and just as they gather for the charge someone shouts “Hey!”
”It was ear splitting. I remember being struck by the strangely joyous, lilting quality of it — as though you and a friend had been searching diligently for something, and he had suddenly stumbled upon it. ‘Hey!’ I wheeled to my left, the drunk spun to his right.”
It was a little old Japanese man [this is all happening in Tokyo] well over seventy, immaculate in his kimono and hakama [a type of traditional trousers or culottes]. Taking no notice of Dobson, he beams at the drunk “as though he had a most important, most welcome secret to share.”
“C’mere,” the old man says informally [Japanese grammar changes when spoken to a superior, an inferior, or an equal..., this is speech with an equal]. “C’mere and talk with me.” He beckons to the drunk and he comes over, towering over the old man. “Why should I talk to you?” he shouts in the old man’s face.
“What’cha been drinkin’?” the old man asks calmly, actually interested.
”Sake!”
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” the old man says with delight. “Absolutely wonderful! You see, I love sake, too...”
Within a few minutes, the old man has talked the drunk down out of his rage into tears of humiliation and remorse and Dobson gets off the train at his station with a lesson in the Creating Peace.
Source: Old Japanese Love Warrior
https://www.dailygood.org/story/133/an-old-japanese-love-warrior-terry-dobson/
From this experience, his practice, and his life, Dobson later theorized
“...in any conflict situation we have the following options open to us:
1. Fighting Back
2. Withdrawal
3. Parley
4. Doing Nothing
5. Deception
6. Aiki (Confluence)”
There’s always more than fight or flight if only because we forget there’s also freeze. And I think we’re frozen now in our reflex response to increasing social violence. I wish there was someone like that wise and fearless old man on the subway when Jordan Neely was desperate, in need of a touch of human or humane kindness.
More on Terry Dobson
Aikido in Daily Life
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2008/2/27/464841/-
Terry Dobson’s Aikido Journey
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2007/11/30/416404/-Terry-Dobsons-Aikido-Journey