Peaceful Fight Success Stories
Peaceful Fight is about students going out and making a better World. When students come back to me with their successes, their stories will go on the site so you can see the type of thing the system is trying to achieve. Feel free to E-mail me if you need any more detail.
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Stuart Mitchinson (Warrior Escrima) : 27/01/02
Stuart's baby (Jenny) had been prescribed antibiotics but a side effect of these were they had caused her intense wind. Won't print Stuart's exact description of Jenny's conditions but let's just say the frequent passings were loud and unpleasant ! Not a problem in itself but the passing of the wind had turn caused Jenny severe and prolonged distress / pain. She was crying and nothing the Mitch or his wife (Tina) did could get her to settle and help her pain. A worrying time for any parent. After about an hour of this crying and the failure of various pacifying strategies, rather despairingly, Stuart thought to use some of his basic Qigong skills which he had learned that week at the club. He'd only done the exercise once and so wasn't really confident in his own abilities. However, he was prepared to have a go. He put one hand in front of Jenny's stomach and one at her back, both about 2" away from her body. He started thinking "good intent" whilst simultaneously not thinking about anything specific (ie he had no planned way in which the Qigong was going to work, but was just going to let it do its own thing). In 30 seconds, Jenny had stopped crying and within a minute she was peaceful and asleep. Stuart was pleasantly surprised that his Qigong had worked and saw the real value of healing in the martial arts ie that you can help those who you love just by being alive.
The story above is surely the "best bits" for me of instructing martial arts. If this one example is the only positive thing that Peaceful Fight ever achieves then I'll be happy.
Stuart did ask whether there was anything which he should be careful of when doing this type of healing work. The way Stuart did his healing overlapped with Kreiger's "Therapeutic Touch" methods (detailed in the book reviews). In this book she suggests that there is no "bad"way of doing this type of healing work. Generally I'd agree. As long as the mind / heart has "good intent" then there is no risk with this type of healing. In this type of treatment, you don't try to move any energy, but just help balance what is already there by using "good intent" type thought. Where to put your hands is based on your intuition and feedback (something which is easier to do with babies as parents trust themselves more in "guessing" the right approach as they have to do this everyday anyway). Only thing to possibly guard against is having any sharp or sudden movements of the hands. These type of movements may disrupt the energy fields and so not necessarily achieve the "natural" balance which Mitch was aiming for with Jenny. Hand movement and its associated energetics is used within other types of Qigong work (such as direction of energy along a meridian or removal of excess / deficient areas) and do require more knowledge both to get them to work and also to be safe with them. However, even within these "moving energy" type balancing exercises, as long as there is good intent and the movements are smooth, there is little risk of ill effects (always be careful when treating around the head / face area though and never deliberately send energy the "wrong way" round the meridian).
Success No:2 : 30/06/02
This second success has very little to do with my teaching of Peaceful Fight but does totally epitomise what finding your own way and aligning with the Dao is all about. It highlights how alignment of life with the Dao can sometimes be very difficult but that, once aligned, all things within life are easier and more "obvious". I'm lucky to have been given the opportunity to use this example as it is very personal to a friend of mine and, as I said, really nothing to do with the club or my input. Read on and you'll see what I mean.
A couple of months ago, a friend of mine contacted me to say that he had some time ago been diagnosed as being severely Gender Dysphoric. My friend will give more details of this medical condition below but the very (very) simplistic view of this condition is that my friend had a woman's brain in a man's body. My friend's life has been lived as a man since birth but, all the way through, my friend knew that there was something "not quite right" about this lifestyle. Under everything that my friend did there was an element of "denial" of how things really were internally. As my friend will tell you, there was a lot of energy expended over the years to try to "purge" this feeling of femininity by doing more and more macho things (martial arts being one of those chosen). However, none of these could ever get the brain to "rewire" in the way my friend was hoping. My friend was a transsexual (man's body, female brain) and however hard he tried to fight this, that was the way things were supposed to be and so would remain for ever more.
So, my friend contacted me to say that he had decided to stop pretending
to a thing that he wasn't (ie a man) and be what he's known he should have
been all along (ie a woman). Think about how difficult this decision must
have been. All of his life, his friends / acquaintances / enemies knew my
friend as a man and he was sacrificing all of the "comfort zone"
he had built up over years, solely to be what he was supposed to be. He
had no way of knowing how people would react nor whether things would be
"better" once he followed his path. However, even with all of
these reasons to "bottle out" of following his correct path he
was prepared to do it anyway. This is the true spirit of the warrior, not
the usual bullshit you hear about being able to hit harder or kick higher
or kill someone quicker. Being what you are supposed to be rather than what
society or other people want you to be is one of the true alignments of
life with the Dao. This story shows that it's not always easy and there
will always be numerous reasons (excuses) for not doing it but in the end
alignment is one of the best strategies. My friend has shown that "Life"
is the true test of a person's spirit, and she rose to the challenge, followed
her heart, and has now found true happiness and contentment. Last time I
saw her she was very relaxed and the internal contentment she has just shone
out of her. She exemplifies what self understanding is all about and I continue
to be proud to have her as a friend (just as I did when she was a man).
She has given me this piece of text to tell her own story. We've chosen
to make the piece anonymous, not through any shame or embarrassment but
because it has now become a bit of a non-issue. There is no need to introduce
my friend in a "Hello, this is my transsexual friend..." type
way, as "Hello, this is my friend......." suffices. She is now
what she is supposed to be and we should all be happy for anyone who achieves
that state (but especially so when they are a friend).
Items from RVP
Firstly I'd like to thank Doug and all of my friends (martial arts and otherwise), work colleagues and family who have given me so much support in what Doug has outlined was a very difficult time for me. This was in fact one of my biggest fears - that is, how would everyone react to me? At the time I thought everyone would just think I was weird and probably never speak to me again. This was an irrational fear (as proven) but is part of the condition of Gender Dysphoria (Transsexualism) along with other reactions like denial and before that a profound sense of "wrongness" about the way I felt - to explain, maybe it would be best if I started from the beginning….
Doug's introduction (above) really captures the essence of my problem and for someone who had probably never heard of the condition before, or at least not given it a second thought was extremely well put. It highlights how I have underestimated people and how easily most people I know just accept as matter of fact something that may have been not exactly a taboo subject, but certainly a more sensational one, ten or fifteen years ago.
Gender Dysphoria is still not really understood by anyone although recent studies have pointed towards a biological cause before birth. After all, every foetus starts in the womb as Female, before hormone changes make it Male. I imagine like everything else in life things are never black and white and I guess I was very much in the grey area when it was my turn to get zapped with the right amount of hormones! Simplistic I know, but backed up by a recent study in Holland that revealed that a Male to Female transsexuals' brain, is, in key areas, the same as a normal genetic female. This is crucially an area of the brain called BSTc that determines which gender you think you are (normally pretty straightforward for most people!), making the phrase " a woman trapped in a man's body " have a ring of truth to it.
So there it was I was born (a baby obviously) and the medical staff looked at my bits and declared me male! So I was bought up as boy absorbing all of the teaching and nurturing and stimulation as a boy is supposed to, which even nowadays is a lot different to the way baby girls are bought up. There is an amazing amount of learning and actions in our society that are reinforced as either "male" or "female " behaviour. For me it was probably in my teens that I really thought something was wrong deep inside I did not want to turn into a Man but a Woman. However every time I looked in the mirror I saw a boy not a girl looking back - being from a practical working class family that called a spade a spade it was obvious to me that I must be mad and to stop thinking that way! This I tried to do for TWENTY years and entered a period of denial and trying to fight my inner most feelings. I was happiest when I had not time to think about myself or my internal conflict. It is very difficult to get into deep internal analysis if you are fighting the elements on top of a mountain or trying not to get hit by another martial artist
Of course nature is powerful and I reached a point when I had to do something, I simply could not carry on trying to be a man. The process was then diagnosis by a psychiatrist which in itself was a massive relief as I knew what was wrong - followed by trying to be brave enough to start the treatment proper. The idea of this is to give the Transsexual person the best chance of getting on with their life in the gender role they feel they should be. So, I had already had the Psychiatric assessment (to make sure I was transsexual and not as mad as I'd thought) and then followed it with hormone therapy then laser therapy and electrolysis to get rid of my facial hair. Finally I've undergone voice therapy so I sound reasonably feminine - at least my voice fits in with my body so I can present a "normal" picture to society at large.
So there we go, I still have to work hard to fit in as I have had to "unlearn" my male side but really I've done all the hard work now and two months on can present myself as a forty something woman rather than a forty something man ! The rest is easy as I can get on with my life. Am I happy? You bet! Every day I think I've died and gone to heaven. I am Me.
I would once again like to thank Doug for the opportunity to add to his website and have listed below some useful sites for information on Gender Dysyphoria. . If you are reading this and think you feel like I did (I hope not!) and would like to contact me please email Doug and he will pass your comments on to me.
Best wishes
RVP
Useful sites for information on Gender Dysphoria:
http://www.looking-glass.greenend.org.uk/
http://www.transgendercare.com/tgcare/index.htm