What about the guy attacking me on the street? Surely THAT GUY is my opponent/foe/enemy, right?
Some styles of martial arts or fighting systems teach that you should always have this attitude. Anybody at any time could attack you, so think of everyone as a potential opponent. This will likely seem like overkill to most of you reading. Good. This paranoia doesn’t really serve anybody who isn’t in an active combat role such as military or law enforcement, and even then we’ve seen how it can get out of hand.
We teach to think of everybody as a partner, even if that person thinks of you as an opponent. Yes, even someone attacking you on the street is your partner. Think about it: what good does it do you to get angry at the person attacking you? That anger only gets in the way of sound reasoning and clean technique. In self defense against a knife or gun, don’t you want to be as calm as possible so that you don’t make a potentially deadly mistake? If you have already choked somebody unconscious, don’t you want to have the mental clarity to let go before causing brain damage?
It doesn’t really matter if somebody else thinks of us or treats us as an opponent. That’s just energy coming at us, whether it’s physical, emotional or verbal. When we treat that person as a partner, we are able to deal with their energy in the best way. We are able to respond well to their attack, rather than reacting in a potentially harmful way.
The inclination to think of another human being comes from the ego. It’s really an experience of separation. If we recognize this and set the ego aside, we see the truth. We might even tell ourselves, If I were in their situation, I would probably be doing the same thing. Often I’ll be driving on the freeway when someone swerves in front of me, cutting me off. In the past, my first thought was always Look at this idiot. Doesn’t he know how to drive? What makes him think he’s more important than everyone else on the road? Then I would proceed to cut someone else off. Now, more often than not, my first thought is Oh, that guy must be in a hurry. I know this because I’ve done the same thing countless times myself. Just because I don’t drive like a crazy person as much as I used to doesn’t mean I don’t understand it.
This is what we mean by Partners, not Opponents on a deeper level. We get in someone else’s world and really experience what it is to be them. That connection leads us to be happier, healthier and better able to respond to whatever our partners throw at us (both in and outside the dojo).
To hear Sifu talk about partners, not opponents, go to the meditation talk.
