December 16, 2017 – Live an Untethered Life

night-garden-yellow-animal

I led another daring rescue one time. Spoiler Alert. Everything turned out fine. I say led since my dog Seamus started things off, but otherwise he didn’t help very much outside of emotional support. And really that’s what he does all the time, so there was no increased emotional support.

During the summer, fall, spring and perhaps winter, I engage in my favorite activity. BBQ. One fall day, I moved hamburger Wednesday over to hamburger Thursday. So I attempted to minimize the charring on the various pieces of meat for people wanting theirs’ medium and those wanting well done. This activity normally included beer, but I minimize, ok abstain, completely now. The sound of sizzling meat filled the air.

Our backyard contains an extensive network of gardens and raised beds. The pond in the corner holds my various goldfish and comets. Basically carp. A large pump circulates the water and causes it to cascade over a small waterfall. I find the sound quite relaxing.

Our golden retriever, Seamus sat on the deck, Sphinx like, looking into the neighbors’ backyard. A wire fence encloses the backyard and vines and cedars provide sufficient privacy. You can sort of tell through the fence that the backyard neighbors keep a swimming pool going. Their large yellow lab sometimes goes for a swim. A delicate thing he is not. His front legs would come to the surface to be plonked back down. Sort of like your younger days when you used to dunk your younger brother.

Instead, Seamus, continuing his sphinx pose, watched their lab circle around the outside of the pool. I could see him occasionally through the fence. Over top the cacophony of sounds, meat sizzling, waterfall falling, lab scrabbling, I heard a much smaller series of plonks. But my attention was constantly drawn to increased sizzling whenever a fire erupted.

I suppose the intuitive part of my mind sensed something was wrong. Seamus’ favorite activity includes ping pong back and forth barking with the neighbors’ dog, but both distracted. The smaller plonk sound grabbed my attention, so I walked over to the back fence and peeked over. Now, I think we own this fence since it seems similar to the one at the side yard. But the previous owners must have tried to make their leftover fencing fit since the top of the fence does not have those nice round tops, Rather, they sheared the tops off at an angle. This converted the nice neighborly wire fence into something like suburbia razor wire.

Approaching the fence carefully, I grabbed the least flesh and tendon rendering part of the fence and looked over the top. I saw that the neighbors’ Yorkie going for a swim. I found this surprising as I didn’t think Yorkies liked swimming very much. But I did not know much about the topic. Much like my lack of knowledge about worms.

I scanned the perimeter of the pool and quickly surmised that there was no easy, or any, access for this little dog to leave the pool. He needed help. I momentary wondered about the social and cultural norms of jumping into the neighbor’s pool. I decided that the situation overrode all of that. It seems longer reading about it, and critics might be thinking the word interminable comes to mind, but the entire process could not have taken more than three seconds.

Remembering the suburban razor wire, I dashed to the garage and got my step ladder. Leaning the ladder against the fence, I climbed to the top. Now, at this point I thought some gloves would have been a nice addition. I grabbed the top wires carefully, there is no other way to handle razor wire, and I clambered into a vault position and balanced at top since straddling the top did not appear to be an option.

The next required leaping clear of the fence and landing on the concrete. Dropping six feet onto concrete should be something that all 60 year olds should avoid, but there was no avoiding this and no backing out. The landing came off fine but continued until I came to a complete stop. Sort of frog like with my butt bouncing off the concrete and slapping down my palms.

The Yorkie managed to swim now to the side of the pool and scratched away at the liner, He remained a good nine inches below the pool deck. I ran to the far side as this seemed much better than jumping in. I grabbed the little guy with only his head above the surface, bulging eyes and pounding heart. He shook uncontrollably. Me too by this point.

I walked over to their house and knocked on the door. The Yorkie’s owner became understandably quite distraught when I told her what happened. She thanked me profusely. She offered to let me walk through the house back to the street. Getting back to the BBQ, I could now hear more sizzling, became a priority. Going through their house would require going around the entire block before getting back to my home. I elected the proto-superhero exit. By this I mean a superhero before they received their powers or after they lost them. Remember how lame that guy was before being bitten by the spider, irradiated by gamma rays, or fused with machines. So visualize them climbing a wire fence. So I gamely clambered back up the fence, without the ladder which remained on the other side. My neighbor started to look a bit more concerned about a 60 year old climbing a razor wire fence. I contained my own concern since successfully getting over the fence became paramount with a watching audience. I managed to hoist myself up and avoid being eviscerated on the top. Putting my foot on the ladder on the other side helped my balance and I could climb down. Jumping back to our side would have been softer with the dirt gardens, but by no means safer. Jumping would mean landing on the field of my wife’s hostas. Even the razor wire seemed a somewhat better alternative. Quicker and done, so to speak.

This shows how connected we can be with all living things if we paid attention. I try to reconcile this with my constant desire to eat meat products. Our backyard neighbors rewarded my wife and me with a nice BBQ set, spices and sauces. So my angst continues as I look forward to the next outdoor cooking season.

pexels-photo-356147 Flow describes the state of being blissfully immersed in a task to the exclusion of everything else, including one’s self. Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian psychologist introduced this concept back in the 70s.

I have felt this type of bliss just a few times. Decades ago, I competed in my very first karate tournament. I had just gotten my green belt, and I appeared to be the only one at that level. All the others had blue and heaven forbid, brown belts. They were like demi-gods back then. The black belts had their own special time and location.

My nervousness approaches extreme levels. We engaged in some preliminary sparing at our own club, but I had never been in a real tournament when people were planning to give their all. The rules were fairly simple. The first to two points wins. Don’t hit anyone hard.

I found my assigned ring and they called all the names. I answered to mine with the standard OSS! Which can be used for yes, no or present. The word OSS symbolizes the attitude of suppressing your emotions and to preserve through all of the training. Similar to the army slogan. Karate Strong!

We do the traditional bows to each other and to the judges and line up outside of the ring. The ring comprises of tape on the floor of the gym that the competition is being held. Makes getting in and out way easier.

We all wear the white sparing gloves. They do protect the knuckles somewhat, but since you are not supposed to actually hit anyone, they don’t serve any other purpose. They work most of the time. The one time they didn’t resulted in one of my knuckles residing in my palm ever since then.

I don’t recall anything from my first four fights except that I managed to win them somehow. The fifth and final fights sticks in my mind. My opponent was a brown belt, and tall and athletic looking. I tried not to get somewhat too off-balance from the fact that he had more skills, musculature, and experience. Meanwhile, I felt exhausted, pained and severely bruised. I had banged my toes against harder objects like knees and elbows all afternoon.

We both bow to enter the ring, and come up to our own line. We then bow to the referee, and to the judge and then to each other. The referee says Hajime, I feel an additional spike of adrenalin as the fight starts.

Csikszentmihalyi suggests that there are five basic aspects of flow.

Firstly, intense and focused concentration on what one is doing in the present moment. In the middle of a competition, the last thing on your mind is that project due tomorrow. You are totally focused on what you opponent is doing, and you let your own body take care of itself. You can’t think and hit at the same time. Although Yogi Berra was not thinking about throwing punches when he said that.

Secondly, there should be a merging of action and awareness. My opponent steps in with a kick and I quickly block and respond with a reverse punch. Just a half point for me since the referee perceives that the technique may have been less than perfect or that it may have partially blocked.

Thirdly, there is a loss of reflective self-consciousness. You are no longer engaged in a competition, you essentially become the competition. Constant repetition allows you to react without thinking. I sense an opening and respond with a quick roundhouse kick. Another half point for myself.

Fourthly, a sense that one can control one’s actions. I normally have the traditional anxiety interacting with people, but the moment I enter the ring this all falls away. The rules are certain and the objective is laid out. This is totally different from social situations where you don’t know the rules and you don’t know what the objective might be. My opponent wins the next half point.

Fifthly, there is a sense that time has passed faster than normal. Time becomes thicker and denser. The bouts are generally two minutes. My opponent wins the next half point again. We are now tied where one more well executed technique would win the match and the division. I glance over at the clock. Thirty seconds remain.

Lastly, the experience of the activity becomes intrinsically rewarding such that the overall goal just becomes an excuse for being there in the first. So if winning falls away, and the focus becomes exercising the best technique you can, then you have entered the flow. The match starts once again. With my left side forward, I start to compress myself smaller. Like a spring. Every m scle become galvanized. I imagine the tiger behind me as I try to jump a chasm. I bring my right knee up and launch myself directly at my opponent with a right straight punch. This catches him completely off guard and he rotates around to try to evade me. This becomes a mistake as now I can punch his unprotected side.

The referee throws himself between the two of us and calls the fight. I am awarded an ippon, a full point and the match.

I don’t recall the awards ceremony, or the little trophy they give you afterwards or even being happy about winning. The goal completely disappeared. But that one technique became burnished in my mind like another tattoo. I am sure that the surge of neurochemicals such as endorphins, dopamine and serotine were responsible for my feeling good about it and for a short time after.

The recollection does come in handy on occasion when I am doing some bench presses and I want to squeeze out one more rep. Putting your all into something becomes easier with a visualization and an extra little shot of adrenalin.

Part of the flow includes a balance of skill level and challenge level. You can be easily overwhelmed by a foot sweep and the balance would be gone. The challenge can’t be so far above you that you are too anxious about even being able to succeed.

My own challenge appeared to be above me, but not so far above that it seemed impossible. Once again, the struggle becomes more important than the destination.