A Different Kind of Warrior
A technique can only work if it is in harmony with universal principles. Such principles need to be grasped through Mind, pure consciousness. Selfish desires thwart your progress, but Mind, not captivated by notions of victory or defeat, will liberate you. Mind fixes your senses and keeps you centered. Mind is the key to wondrous power and supreme clarity. –Morihei Ueshiba
For the past two issues of The Hurdle Magazine, Keare Smith wrote the first two parts of a three-part series entitled “The Way of the Warrior.” In these articles, Smith discusses his own personal hurdling journey and explains how hurdlers are warriors, as based on his reading of the classic sword fighting text, The Book of Five Rings.
Reading Smith’s pieces led me to reflect on my own thoughts regarding the warrior theme, and I found myself recalling a book I had read several years ago entitled The Art of Peace by Morihei Ueshiba, founder of the Aikido school of martial arts. So I pulled the book off the shelf, re-read it, found tons of connections to hurdling that I had overlooked before, and knew that I would have to explore Ueshiba’s themes extensively in an article of my own.
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Ueshiba joined the Japanese army as a 20 year old in 1903, and “became an extraordinarily gung-ho soldier (Ueshiba 5). But living through two world wars later in the century jaded his attitude toward violence as a means of conflict resolution. “I enjoyed being in the military as a young man,” he said, “but even then I innately felt that war is never the solution to any problem” (5).
His moment of epiphany came in 1925. A master swordsman had challenged him to a sword fight. After forcing the swordsman to give up without allowing his opponent to strike a blow, Ueshiba realized the hollowness of such a victory. “All at once I understood the nature of creation: the Way of a Warrior is to manifest divine love, a spirit that embraces and nurtures all things” (11). So he dedicated himself to creating a martial art form that emphasized the spiritual over the material.
The term “Aikido” translates into “the art of peace” or “the way of harmony.” Ueshiba said that Aikido “should be perceived as none other than the martial art of love” (33).
To explain what Aikido is exactly isn’t an easy thing to do, as it intentionally eludes definition. Dictionary.com defines it as “a Japanese form of self-defense utilizing wrist, joint, and elbow grips to immobilize or throw one’s opponent.” While this definition provides a basic idea of what Aikido looks like when practiced, it doesn’t come close to describing it in its depth and breadth.
Ueshiba says that “in Aikido, change is the essence of technique. There are no forms in Aikido” (34). Because there are no forms, it constantly evolves with each movement, and is never practiced the same way by different practitioners; nor is it practiced the same way each time by the same practitioner. The aim in Aikido is to disarm the opponent’s desire to fight, to potentially open the door to a spiritual awakening. “Aikido means not to kill,” Ueshiba says. “In Aikido … we try to completely avoid killing, even of the most evil person” (32).
Philosophically, therefore, Aikido sounds similar to the Christian doctrine of “turn the other cheek.” The idea is to overcome an opponent not by defeating him, but by enlightening him. The love that Ueshiba speaks of is not merely a love for one’s opponent, but a deep, burning passion for the art form itself. This passion is what enables you to perform all movements effortlessly, free of fear, free of malice, free of thought.
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In fact, your opponent is not really your opponent because you and your opponent become one. This is the beauty of the Art of Peace. –Morihei Ueshiba
So how does Aikido, the art of peace, apply to hurdling? My contention would be that hurdling, in its purest form, is more an art form than a competition, that it is an art form even while it is a competition. And as with Aikido, the real battle is taking place within, even while the external battle is being fought. When one has a passion for the hurdles, and follows that passion wherever it leads, one continually re-discovers oneself. Hurdling is a pathway toward authenticity. If you go far enough, it takes you to a place beyond winning and losing, to a place inside yourself that on a conscious level you had forgotten even existed. And that’s why hurdlers hurdle. To know that feeling of being in harmony. To know that feeling of being at peace.
Track differs from other sports in that you don’t “face” your opponent, but run beside your opponent. That in and of itself makes running more of a “spiritual” art than a “material” art, to use Ueshiba’s terminology. In football, wrestling, boxing, soccer, tennis, etc., you face your opponent. In a very real physical sense, you and your opponents have an adversarial relationship. Literally and/or figuratively, you’re trying to beat the snot out of each other. To achieve victory, you must study your opponent diligently; you must know his or her strengths and weaknesses as well as you know your own. You must not allow yourself to be intimidated by your opponent’s aggressiveness or overwhelmed by his or her talent. In such a scenario, the us vs. them mentality is very relevant. And the mano-a-mano warlike mentality is pretty much the norm in modern sports culture. Competitive sports, to a large degree, have become a modified form of warfare, and the victors become our cultural icons.
Running naturally differs from these other sports, even at the recreational level. When you go for a run, you run with a friend; you run together. But if you’re playing pick-up basketball, you pick teams and play against each other. And only by winning can you stay on the court. When you go for a run, there is no winning or losing; you just run. Yet when running beside someone, you always find yourself running faster than you would alone.
In track, particularly in events run in lanes, there is no real strategizing taking place like there is in team sports and one-on-one sports, and even in distance races. While it does help to know your opponents’ strengths and weaknesses, your primary focus has to be on yourself. As coaches always preach, “run your own race in your own lane.” In the hurdling events, such single-mindedness is essential. Focusing on an opponent, even for a brief instant, can throw you off your rhythm and mess up your timing. In the hurdles, it’s easy to sabotage your own race by chasing after an opponent who has sped ahead of you. Next thing you know, the hurdle is there and you’re not ready for it. That’s why, in the hurdles, your focus must be on what you are doing – between the hurdles and over the hurdles. It’s not so much that you need to block out your opponents, but that you need to dial in to your own rhythm, your own cadence, your own movements.
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Never fear another challenger, no matter how large;
Never despise another challenger, no matter how small. –Morihei Ueshiba
So in quite the literal sense, hurdlers face hurdles the same as opponents in other sports face each other. Hurdlers have a common enemy, or to put it in language I would prefer, a common focus. The hurdles unite us. As Ueshiba says, “We have no enemies in Aikido, none of us are strangers” (26). Replace “Aikido” with “the hurdles” and you have my sentiments exactly.
In my years as a coach and in my years running this website, it’s become quite evident that hurdles everywhere are dealing with the same issues, the same struggles, the same frustrations. And everybody, it seems, is looking for a coach who really knows the hurdles, who understands a hurdler’s needs, who appreciates the ways in which hurdlers differ from other athletes.
My personal policy is simple: if you are a hurdler and you ask me to help you, I will help you. I don’t care what color uniform you wear. I don’t care what school or club you represent on race day. I have no secrets that I share only with members of my inner circle. If you are a hurdler, you are a member of my inner circle. To me, sharing ideas, sharing knowledge, giving freely of any and all insight I may have, is a requirement of being a spiritual warrior. It’s a requirement of being an authentic human being. As Ueshiba says, “A warrior is charged with bringing a halt to all contention and strife” (59). It’s not about being on a mission to save the world; it’s about being natural. To me, it’s unnatural to horde information, to view fellow warriors, fellow journeyers on the path, as enemies.
In the past, a handful of my athletes have grown annoyed with my willingness to work with outside athletes, and to invite them to train with us on occasion. But they always come around to seeing the benefits of it. When training with a rival, that rival suddenly becomes an actual person, a friendship develops, and the training environment is infused with a new energy. To m e, a healthy competitive atmosphere doesn’t emphasize beating each other, but making each other better.
Kim Batten doesn’t break the 400 hurdles world record in 1995 if Tonja Buford isn’t right there by her side every step of the way. Renaldo Nehemiah doesn’t break the 13.00 barrier in 1981 if Greg Foster isn’t breathing fire down his neck. Andre Phillips, Danny Harris, and Harald Schmid don’t run sub-48.00 if Edwin Moses doesn’t set the standard. An Allen Johnson needs an Anier Garcia. A Sally Pearson needs a Dawn Harper. And vice versa. And on and on. The oneness that we share – as hurdlers, as human beings – is very real. As Ueshiba says, “There is no need to battle with each other – we are all brothers and sisters who should walk the Path together, hand in hand. Keep to your Path, and nothing else will matter” (59).
Your Path is the Path of your own development, your own improvement, your own progress toward mastery. Becoming over-anxious in comparing yourself to others – which is so easy to do in this era when you can instantly access the results of fellow hurdlers’ races all around the world – leads you to deviate from the Path, to lose touch with your warrior spirit. In the end, all you can do is train to the best of your abilities and run your race as fast as you can.
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The most important part of training is to TRAIN. –David Oliver
Ueshiba says that Aikido “has no set forms, no set patterns. It is like an invisible wave of energy…. Any movement, in fact, can become an Aikido technique, so in ultimate terms, there are no mistakes” (36). In applying this concept to hurdling, it means that there is no one style that is the best style, that everything you learn you can in some way use. So don’t be afraid of making mistakes, don’t be afraid of doing things incorrectly, don’t be afraid of experimenting with new ideas. Ueshiba speaks of the need to “live with creative courage” (18).
I’m reminded of a conversation I was a part of a the coaching clinic I attended this past January in Winston Salem, NC. A coach was asking David Oliver if he could explain “the right way” to teach his hurdler to 7-step to the first hurdle. Oliver explained that there is no right way, that he had learned “through trial and error.” He and his coach experimented with different block settings, had tried coming out with tape down, had tried coming out without tape down. When something went right they stuck with it and built upon it. “There is no one-size-fits-all,” Oliver said. Similarly, Ueshiba points out that “progress comes to those who train and train; reliance on secret techniques will get you nowhere” (84).
Oliver went on to explain that at the time he started 7-stepping, very few other hurdlers were doing it, so he really had no choice but to figure it out on his own. But even now that there are many 7-steppers who can be studied by clicking on a YouTube link, the fact remains that if you really want to do it and master it, you have to go out there on the track and figure it out for yourself.
Sometimes it’s easy to suffer from what Oliver refers to as “paralysis from over-analysis.” We’re so eager to do things “right,” so afraid of doing things “wrong,” that we’re afraid to do anything at all. It’s okay to experiment with 7-stepping, to come to the conclusion that it’s not for you, and to then go back to 8-stepping. It’s okay to try to 13-step the whole way in the 400 hurdles, to find out you’re not ready to do it, and then go back to 15-stepping the last two hurdles. You didn’t fail, and you didn’t waste your time. You grew. You learned. And you will be able to use what you learned.
Hurdling is all about individual expression. More than any other event in track and field, hurdling is about styles. There are as many styles as there are hurdlers. You see hurdlers like Aries Merritt, David Oliver, Liu Xiang, Jason Richardson, Dayron Robles, all having extreme levels of success, yet all with contrasting hurdling styles. While there are similarities that can be pointed out from hurdler to hurdler, you can tell who is who just by how they look over the hurdles.
One of my funniest memories occurred several years ago when one of my athletes, messing around toward the end of practice, imitated the styles of several hurdlers. “Let me do Dominique Arnold,” he said. And he looked just like Arnold over the hurdle. Then he said “let me do Trammell,” and he looked just like Terrence Trammell. He did two or three other hurdlers and it was hilarious. All the other hurdlers, as well as myself, nearly fell on the ground laughing. But a very important point was being made: you can identify a hurdler by his or her style. Your style is your thumbprint. It is your identity.
Of course, in developing your own style, you have to study hurdler after hurdler after hurdler, seeing what you can pick up that you can incorporate into your style. Then once you’ve incorporated it, forget about it, forget about that hurdler. Let your body take over. Then study more, incorporate more, forget more. Ueshiba says, “Ultimately you must forget about technique. The further you progress, the fewer teachings there are. The Great Path is really No Path” (89).
Always move beyond what you already know, what you’re already doing. Even though your style is readily identifiable, it is undergoing a constant process of evolution. You never get to the point where you’re done figuring it out. You never want to allow yourself to stagnate. This is hurdling as Aikido, as an ever-evolving art form that is susceptible to change each moment. To quote Ueshiba, “Life is growth. If we stop growing, technically and spiritually, we are as good as dead” (47).
A musical artist like Miles Davis serves as a good point of reference. He had a very distinctive sound on the trumpet. Just one note and you knew it was Miles. Yet his style was changing all the time. The Miles of 1955 doesn’t sound like the Miles of 1959, doesn’t sound like the Miles of 1965, doesn’t sound like the Miles of 1972. Yet it all sounds like Miles. One of the most beautiful balladeers to ever play the trumpet, he was asked once in the late 1960’s why he never played ballads anymore in his live performances. He responded by saying, “If you want to hear the old ballads, then play the old records.” Of course, on the surface, that sounds like a rude response. But his point was valid. As an artist, he couldn’t stand still. He couldn’t fall backward. He had to keep moving forward.
The same principle applies to hurdlers. The Aries Merritt who broke the world record in 2012 was not the same Aries Merritt who ran in Liu Xiang’s world record race in 2006. He switched to a 7-step start, he refined his lead arm action, and I’m sure there were other changes he made that weren’t as noticeable. The Allen Johnson who won the 2006 World Cup was not the same Allen Johnson who won the 1996 Olympic gold medal. He had a much better trail leg and he ran much cleaner races. There are so many more examples.
The hurdlers who embrace the art form and who seek mastery of it never settle, never grow content, even when what they’re doing is working. Ueshiba: “The techniques of the Way of Peace change constantly; every encounter is unique, and the appropriate response should emerge naturally. Today’s techniques will be different tomorrow” (87).
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From ancient times,
Deep learning and valor
Have been the two pillars of the Path:
Through the virtue of training,
Enlighten both body and soul. –Morihei Ueshiba
Ueshiba created Aikido at a time when world wars and the advent of atomic weaponry threatened to end the existence of mankind. We had become so adept at the art of war that we were destroying ourselves. A new dynamic was needed. A new model. One that turned the focus inward, one centered in self-cultivation. But the goal was not to overcome oneself n the sense of engaging in some sort of internal battle that merely re-directed the war-like mentality. Instead, the aim was to create a harmony within oneself – specifically, a harmony between the body and the soul (the matter and the spirit of the individual). The idea was to use the body as a spiritual vessel, as a means to create inner peace, and thereby outer peace, instead of using it as a tool for violence.
In the competitive arena, this is a very difficult concept to grasp. But for hurdlers, it makes much sense. A hurdler’s relationship with the hurdles is not an adversarial one. Even though we do “face” hurdles and they are in our way, the aim is not to overcome them or defeat them, but to harmonize with them, to adapt our rhythm to them. We are dancers and the hurdles are our dancing partners.
Ueshiba says, “Unification of body and spirit through the Art of Peace is an exalted state, so high and pleasant that it brings tears of joy to your eyes” (92). This exalted state can occur at any moment, in any rep, in any race, even during a drill. Everything synchronizes. Lead leg, trail leg, lead arm, trail arm, lean, steps between. Outsiders don’t get it. They see us fall and they wonder why we get back up. They see the danger and they think we’re crazy. They hear the clang-clang-clang of hurdles being hit and they’re amused by the spectacle. They see us struggling with our stride pattern and our technique and they don’t see the point. But what they can’t see from the outside is that Ueshiba is right: when that exalted feeling occurs, it does bring tears of joy to your eyes.
I remember one day in the fall of my sophomore year of college, I was practicing over 42’s, trying to get my trail leg right after spending my entire freshman year clobbering hurdles with my knee and ankle. I was experimenting with different ideas regarding the angles in order to avoid hitting hurdles. And though a couple ideas worked in that regard, I felt myself too high and spending too much time in the air. Then finally, I don’t know how, the idea hit me that maybe the timing was the issue, not the angle. The floating feeling, I surmised, was being caused by bringing the trail leg to the front too soon, before the lead leg was ready to begin its descent. So I decided to let my hips twist slightly. And then, as soon as I felt that slight twist, boom, trail leg to the front. And it worked. For the first time ever over 42’s, I felt like I was fluidly running over the hurdles, with no loss of balance, no loss of forward momentum. In high school I had never needed to develop an efficient trail leg; I could just let it drop and keep sprinting. So this Sunday morning in late October, training by myself with no one but the birds to watch, I felt what it meant to have both legs run over the hurdle.
And yes, a tear of joy did come to my eye. The feeling caught me off guard. Not until I solved the problem did I realize that I didn’t think I’d ever solve it. I felt like the rep had happened to me, that I hadn’t done it myself. I didn’t know if I could duplicate it. I looked around. Did anybody see that? Did anybody see what just happened?
It was an exalted moment. Not an out-of-body experience, but an in-the-body experience. That was the first time I fully realized why I hurdle, why all hurdlers hurdle. All the garbage reps when you stumble, stutter, reach, twist, and stomp are worth it when that one rep or race comes along in which everything “clicks.” In such moments, we re-discover ourselves. The physical merges with the spiritual. The struggling, competing self merges with the divine Self that knows no doubt. In such moments, we remember that identifying ourselves as hurdlers has nothing to do with what place we come in, what are time is, or how high we are ranked. Instead, it has to do with something deep inside of us that is so true, so real, that it is beyond articulation.
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Cast off limiting thoughts and return to true emptiness. Stand in the midst of the great void. This is the secret of the Way of a Warrior. –Morihei Ueshiba
As touched on earlier in this article, when Ueshiba says that the way of the warrior is to manifest divine love, he is not talking about a happy, lighthearted love. What he is talking about is an inner fire. We often talk about being dedicated, being committed to excellence, learning the value of hard work. But if you love what you do, if a fire burns within you, then you don’t need to be dedicated, you don’t need a sense of commitment, because the hard work doesn’t feel like work. It invigorates you. It awakens for you a love of life, a love of being.
This love, this passion, can flourish in the hotbed of the competitive environment. In fact, that is where it absolutely must thrive in order to keep you balanced and centered while facing immense pressures to perform at a high level. Ueshiba says, “Rather than being captivated by the notion of ‘winning or losing,’ seek the true nature of things” (74).
In other words, instead of focusing on the result, focus on the moment. Focusing on the result creates tension and fear. Focusing on the moment allows your love of what you do to remain at the forefront of your consciousness. Love will infuse you with confidence and create an inner calm, even as the heart is pounding and the nerves are tingling.
In such a state of awareness, you can step into the starting blocks with an empty mind, ready to react to the sound of the gun.
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Work Cited
Ueshiba, Morihei. ed. John Stevens. The Art of Peace. Shambala. Boston, 2002. Print.
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