I’m not a person prone to violence nor rare to have it directed at me personally but I have been around lots of violent activity. I have been present at a few homicides, a couple of riots and a bunch of injured people in search and rescue. I have done all types of self-defense classes and taught karate for many years plus competitive shooting along with knife/axe throwing. But I competed for years in ballroom dancing, a variety of art forms and worked in stained glass professionally. Balance may be easy to define but not so simple to experience. Life is about movement and balance in movement is not about what you avoid but what knocks you down.
As an ill kid from pre-school years, I painfully became aware in first grade how I was way behind the other kids in physical activity. That did not make me anxious or become competitive because I had a strategy. My plan was to skip the activities that I perceived as a “waste of time” and use the conserved time to keep pace with the group. Of course, not the way I framed the plan in my head. The scheme was for marbles and jacks to play for fun and avoid ball games, tag and racing. I did not get the concept that competitive physical play builds confidence and balance in movement. It just looked like too much work for nothing and I liked marbles plus girls seemed to like pick-up-jacks and I liked the idea of playing for kisses.
After that first year in school, I realized that avoidance was a weak plan with running. That summer I played hide-n-seek most every day with neighborhood kids (some running) and hiked for hours in the forested areas around the local farms. My legs were gaining in strength but I still found competition distasteful. I ran full out to school and home each day (five blocks) with school books to learn balance while running. I received a lot of banged up knees but no one watching to judge me. That second school summer I grasped that competition is grand support if your focus is learning; the teasing and judgements were the negative elements that lead to violence. I learned to “own” my process of development and keep my attention on my goals and not other’s accomplishments. Those neighborhood kids that I never got to play with in my first 5 years as a child really supported me every summer in catching up and reminding me of my endurance. Balance is a condition in which different elements are equal or in correct proportions. The goal is not to do better than someone else but to find balance in your level of skill.
We all yearn to be seen, heard, understood, affirmed, and to feel happy. We also wish to be treated differently than you might want to be treated; everyone is different. Is happiness more important than the feeling of purpose? Balance is a conglomeration of unique elements calibrated to produce and support your expression of personal self. Humans can get violent when they lose perception of range but I found that you don’t need to hide from it. Practice with balance in life secures a space where you need not be for or against anything or anyone. Attend to that feeling and respect others in their yet unsecured effort to find their balance point. I’m inspired by a life characterized by variety and a reference for balance with nature and all things living in it.
Chriss
