Hidden Codes & Hidden Agendas–Verbal Jujutsu Part II

“For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” Sun Tzu

 

In the last blog, I mentioned how, as a Jujutsu instructor, my greatest advice to eager young students was that the best way to win a fight was to avoid one. Of course, all of us are aware this is easier said than done.

 

Martial arts gives us a lot of useful parallels when navigating the murky waters of human relationships. As an instructor, I also was a salesman. No students meant no classes which translated quickly into no paycheck. Yet, martial arts was not for every personality type. During my tenure I had to turn away a handful of individuals when my series of questions revealed a person who was looking and hoping for a fight. That wasn’t what Jujutsu was about. We aspired to recruit individuals who wanted discipline, fulfillment and, ultimately, to be prepared. Jujutsu teaches powerful and sometimes deadly techniques, but the true student of the form, deep down, hopes to never be forced to use them.

 

Sadly, we all deal with people who are looking and hoping for a fight. They may be in the workplace, in an organization, a club, or even a member of our own family. In “Interrogator Lessons” I referred to them as “toxic people.” Also, all of us possess our own needs, wants, agendas and even baggage. Like billiard balls, we will sometimes “strike” against each other. Since we don’t have the luxury of living out our days alone on a desert island reality dictates that conflict is inevitable. HC&HA, like Jujutsu, is for people who desire discipline, fulfillment, and, ultimately, to be prepared when conflict arises.

 

Today, we’ll discuss two important tactics; flexibility and redirection.

 

Flexibility

 

Jujutsu involves a lot of throws and grappling maneuvers. Anyone who watched the first five years of the Ultimate Fighting Challenge saw a quick pattern emerge. Brazilian Jujutsu (Gracie Ground Fighting) had the ability to simply flatten all the competition. Whether it was Kung Fu or Kickboxing, the second one of the Gracie brothers swept an opponent’s legs and got them on the ground it was only a matter of time before the fight was over.

 

Why?

 

Most of the other forms relied heavily on punching and kicking. So long as a contender remained standing, he was a formidable force. But, sweep his feet out from under him, get him flat on his back…and, well it was a very different story. The reason is twofold. Unless a person trains for it, the initial shock of being knocked off one’s feet can be paralyzing. Most people don’t know how to fall. When this type of person hits the ground, the impact slams his head, dazing him. The force knocks the wind from his lungs. Also, since he has spent no time training for what to do next, he’s rapidly out of his element with no offensive or defensive tactics at his disposal.

 

One fighter stands out in my mind—a boxer. This guy possessed amazing strength and speed. He managed to pummel his way through every opponent, but once up against a Gracie, found himself suddenly on the mat, helplessly twisted like a pretzel.

 

This same scenario played out for a few years, but then something interesting occurred. Anyone who intended to fight in the UFC began taking grappling classes.

 

I hate to say it, but very often conflict, whether it is with family, a loved one, or a coworker can very easily end up on the mats. Hopefully the tools in this blog will help you keep your wits when your feet get swept out from under you, and then provide skills to help you walk away unscathed.

 

Grappling (wrestling), remarkably enough, doesn’t require tremendous physical strength, but what it does require is flexibility. Being limber is key whether one happens to be on the offense or the defensive side. If you have a tight back, hamstrings, or shoulders, then a grappler can pin you more easily because it takes far less pressure to make you squeal and tap out. Conversely, if you are super limber, you have many more moves at your disposal to not only escape, but then to redirect the energy back onto your opponent.

 

How does this apply to relationships?

 

Gregory Hartley is a veteran military interrogator who holds honors in the United States Army. More recently, he has demonstrated his expertise with the Defense Intelligence Agency, Navy SEALS, Federal law enforcement agencies, and national television. Hartley is the coauthor of several books that apply the world of the interrogator to real life.

 

Hartley, in his book “How to Spot a Liar” explains how those individuals who are rigid and fixed in mindset and lifestyle are an interrogators dream. This person’s lack of mental and emotional flexibility makes them the easiest to rattle, frustrate, and finally break under questioning. Stress affects all humans, but the person who is unbending and inflexible is the most vulnerable of all.

 

This brings to mind Jack Nicholson’s character Melvin Udall in the 1997 film “As Good as it Gets.” Melvin suffers from severe obsessive compulsive disorder. He is very literally enslaved by his rituals, whether it is sitting at a certain table, having a certain waitress, or even locking the door a specific number of times when he enters his apartment. Any deviation from this ritual sends poor Melvin into an emotional tailspin or meltdown.

 

Now this might be an extreme example, but it gives us pause when we consider our own behavior and expectations when it comes to our relationships. How flexible are we when dealing with others? How do we react when our child wants to spend time with his friends instead of with us? How do we respond when a vacation doesn’t go as planned or a date derails an hour in? What is our reaction when a coworker fails to meet a deadline? Are we like Melvin, more concerned with things clicking along according to our plan, or do we “go with the flow?”

 

Grappling capitalizes on two fundamental truths. 1) Most people don’t know what to do when knocked on the ground. 2) Most people have poor flexibility. The same thing happens in relationships. How much better will we all withstand the emotional wrestling match if we are prepared? We have a far greater chance of getting back on our feet unscathed if we don’t get rattled when our feet are swept out from under us, and understand that emotional flexibility is our greatest asset.

 

Redirection

 

How many of you can think back to your days in high school driver’s education? Remember the simple physics lesson regarding a collision? If a car hits a wall at 40 mph, then it is an impact force of 40 mph. Yet, if a car traveling at 40 mph hits another car traveling at the same speed head-on we have an impact force now doubled to 80 mph. A bad fender bender has likely turned into an auto fatality.

 

Jujutsu understands that meeting an opponent with equal force is just a bad idea, and the moves frequently involve redirecting an aggressor’s energy.

 

Empathy is a very effective tool to redirect negative energy when faced with conflict.

 

First, a quick review…

 

In one of the first HC&HA blogs, we discussed the importance of ranking and repetition. When a person feels threatened, the natural instinct is to distance from the true cause of distress. People tend to rank priorities when they speak. Human nature is to assume the first item on the list is the most important. When my colleague Bob says he “needs my report on GB corporation, a time to discuss corporate training, and an idea of how many people might want to attend his DFW workshop” then it is pretty safe to assume the report on GB is what he deems most important.

 

Yet, as we studied earlier, conflict will change the nature of the ranking, and will reverse the order…because humans distance themselves from the negative. So when in an argument with your girlfriend, it is probably wiser to focus on the last item in the list because you understand that she has “backed into” the problem and needed time to divulge the source of her angst. Also, pay attention to what is repeated in the course of the conversation. This is a big clue as to what is really bothering her.

 

The ability to do this will depend largely on the capacity to not allow stress to get its claws into the situation. Interrogator Lesson Number One gives us a clear picture of what happens to us when stress levels get out of control.

 

*** Empathy will work best when we can ascertain the true reason the other person is upset.

 

No emotionally healthy person likes conflict. Often it throws up our defenses and we are quick to counter with a laundry list of why the other party is more at fault or more to blame or where this person has fallen short. But, remember the auto-collision example? When force meets force, the end result is never pretty.

 

So let’s say we maintain a cool head and are able to listen well enough to get to the root of the problem. In this situation, empathy is our friend. Most fights can be diffused rather quickly when the other party is given a chance to be heard and understood, regardless of whether we agree with them or not.

 

Communication is not only what we say, but how we say it and also how that information is then processed by the other person. In short, communication is a two-way street. If we say something that hurts another, we might not have meant it, but we do need to be aware that our phrasing, tone, or inflection is being filtered through the other party’s baggage and current state of mind. What is vital to understand is that the other person is distressed. That is reality. In order to keep the situation from escalating, we have to deal with the current situation as it presents.

 

This person is hurt and needs to feel understood.

 

We might not even be the source of the other person’s pain. But, we can quickly become one of we aren’t careful.

 

For example, Cindy’s mother really wants to buy a house. She has been in apartment living for ten years and misses having a yard and a place to call home. The problem is that Cindy’s mother had several years of bad health resulting in some pretty hefty medical bills and damaged credit. Since Cindy is in charge of her mother’s finances, this desire for a home has been a continual source of disagreement between them.

 

Cindy’s mother wants a home to call her own…immediately. Cindy believes this is a poor decision and thinks it is far wiser if her mother can wait, give time to pay off bills, put money in savings, and improve credit damaged during the time of her illness.

 

The next time conflict over this topic arises, Cindy has a choice. She can meet her mother’s force head-on using logic; giving a list of why her mother needs to wait on purchasing a home. Or, she can understand that her mother is dealing with an emotional need, and emotion and logic are rare companions. Entering a debate on the logic of an emotional desire is about the quickest way to start a fight.

 

This is where empathy can help.

 

The better approach would be for Cindy to sit down across from her mother and say, “I understand you don’t want to live in apartments any more. I can appreciate you wanting to have a garden and a place to call your own. Anyone would want that.”

 

Chances are, the conflict very well could stop right there. And before you roll your eyes, think how many times you were having a bad day or week and suddenly found yourself in a fight with a friend or loved one because all you really wanted to hear was, “I am so sorry to hear that happened to you. That must have been very disappointing.”

 

We’ve all been there. We didn’t want the other person to hit us with logic or want them to fix the problem. We simply wanted to be validated, and when we felt dismissed or ignored, the small problem suddenly escalated.

 

Lately I have spent a lot of time giving insight, tools and tactics for managing conflict. The reason for this is simple. Conflict is energy. It can either be destructive or constructive. Conflict, poorly handled, can destroy a marriage, alienate children from their parents, split apart a workplace, or throw an organization into a destructive cycle of infighting and blame-game. On the other hand, conflict, when well managed, can deepen relationships, build trust, and create unbreakable bonds.

 

By being flexible, we allow others room to have needs. Emotional flexibility gets us more easily back on our feet when our plans or agenda is kicked out from under us. By using empathy, we allow others permission to be vulnerable and not fear attack. Empathy repositions us as friend and ally.

 

We can’t control other people. We can only control our response. Often the knowledge that we have a choice is both empowering and comforting. These skills, like anything else, require practice, practice, and more practice until they’re second nature. And keep in mind, even the great military leader Sun Tzu understood that the pinnacle of skill rested in how well one could gain victory…without fighting at all.

 

Until next time…