A classic rookie mistake in aikido is trying to avoid the blow that’s coming for your head. I don’t mean that you have to just stay still and offer your head to be hit, this clearly doesn’t make a lot of sense. However, we all have natural instincts to “fight or flight”. So you may try to avoid the blow by jumping aside or leaning out of the way, or try to stop it by meeting the opponent’s arm or weapon straight on. Neither tactic will succeed if you’re dealing with a strong and determined opponent.
Instead, there is a technique in aikido called iriminage. You have to step forward into the attack, then at the last moment turn your whole body out of the way to end up very close to the opponent but behind them, while their blow just misses you. It is important not to step away because the attacker will follow you, and keep your body straight instead of instinctively throwing your head back and leaving the rest of your body vulnerable. It’s also very hard. All our instincts scream that moving straight into the attack is very dangerous and has to be avoided at all costs. It took me a long time before I could acknowledge my fear and confront it, but it was exhilarating when I was finally able to make this work.
Fear is an essential evolutionary adaptation which helps us to avoid danger. FDR’s famous words are often misinterpreted as a call to be fearless. However, the whole quote is a bit more subtle.
Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself-nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
Roosevelt was talking about the “freeze” — the worst possible action of the three F’s (unless you’re attacked by a grizzly bear, when playing dead may be your only option).
Not denying but acknowledging and moving past your fear is necessary to move into the attack. This goes for martial arts, this also goes for math, and for the coronavirus, which is now forcing my dojo and many others to stay closed for weeks, maybe months. Denying the danger of the pandemics or ignoring it in order to appear brave lead to the same terrible result. The only way to defeat it is by studying the enemy and using all the information we have to move, as a society, decisively forward with the best strategy we have.
A psychologist friend once told me about a metaphor that may help you deal with your fear or anxiety. Imagine your fear is a scary beast sitting across a deep chasm from you, and both of you are playing tug of war, pulling on a rope that crosses the chasm. You are trying not to let the beast win, but do you have to play at all? The beast can’t hurt you, and you don’t need to cross over. You can just let it sit there, drop the rope and go where you need to.
Math anxiety is a common and very real thing. I’ve seen many students who freeze when they are facing a math problem and don’t know the solution off the top of their heads. This happens to students who think they’re not good at math, and so give up before even trying. This also happens to students who are very good at math, and are used to being able to solve every problem in minutes. They are not used to tackling harder problems which may require hours, days or even years, as in mathematical research. When faced with a hard problem, don’t be afraid or ashamed of your fear, and don’t fight it. Acknowledge the fear but don’t let it dictate your actions. Create a good plan for attacking the problem, then move straight ahead. You might find out that the problem is easier than you thought. If you’re still stuck, your plan might include reading a textbook, or asking for help.
After you do iriminage correctly many times over, your body learns to do the right thing, your muscle memory takes over, and fear fades into the background. After you solve many hard problems, you know you can do it, and while you still might have some trepidation when starting a math test, the trained part of your mind takes over.
