Ungendered Interactions & The Practice of Aikido
1Although the martial arts are often understood as fundamentally patriarchal and male-dominated activities, it has been our experience that in the Japanese martial art called Aikido (pronounced, eye-key-dough) because of the unique philosophy and conditions of practice, gendered norms can be challenged. Our initial aim was to interrogate and depict the manner in which the gendered structure of a martial arts dojo framed and limited the experience for both women and men. However, during the course of writing this paper, we came to realize that, in fact, something unexpected and unanticipated regarding gender was taking place when we practiced Aikido. We have labeled this experience an “ungendered interaction.” We define ungendered interaction as a noncompetitive experience shaped by cooperation rather than domination that facilitates and depends on an awareness of the connection of energy (ki or chi) between participants that, in turn, leads to power that is neither masculine nor feminine. In such an interaction, the gendering of self that is enforced and structured on multiple levels of self and society becomes secondary while an experience apparently beyond gender can occur. In the process of examining the critical attributes of this concept, we challenge important assumptions regarding gendered bodies, opening new avenues of inquiry into the meaning and manifestations of “gender.”
2Gender theorists from Judith Butler (2004, 2005) to Bonnie Zimmerman (1987) remind us of the all-encompassing nature of gender. As Judith Lorber (1994)) has summarized,
gender is a social institution, it establishes patterns of expectations for individuals, orders the social processes of everyday life, is built into major social organizations of society, such as the economy, ideology, the family and politics, and is also an entity in and of itself. (p. 3)
We are born into a particular culture with particular constructions of what “male and female”, “masculine and feminine” mean and, more importantly, go on to reproduce these expectations in our own behavior in order to be comprehensible in society (Connell, 1995; Ridgeway 2009). As Butler (1988) points out in her early argument for the performativity of gender,
because there is neither an ‘essence’ that gender expresses or externalizes nor an objective ideal to which gender aspires; because gender is not a fact, the various acts of gender create the idea of gender, and without those acts, there would be no gender at all. Gender is, thus, a construction that regularly conceals its genesis. The tacit collective agreement to perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions is obscured by the credibility of its own production. (p. 522)
For Butler, we are all complicit, but not fully responsible, for the reproduction of gender’s comprehensive and inescapable presence.
3Gender necessarily varies across cultures and historical periods, but in any society there are accepted gender categories and all members of society are expected to adapt to them (West & Zimmerman, 1987). Gender is experienced at the level of the individual through an embodied understanding of what kind of person one is, male, female, transgender or a complex variant thereof. But, the power of gender is its pervasive and pernicious hold at the societal level that structures and shapes individuals who feel themselves to be gendered in particular ways (Butler, 2004; Ridgeway, 2009; Fenstermaker and West, 2002). Without those broader expectations, assumptions, and norms, the individual experience of gender might be much less powerful and devastating. And, yet, as we discuss in this paper, a particularly interactive, fundamentally social and physical practice in an unexpected location (a martial arts dojo) may offer an opportunity to experience the self as ungendered, if only fleetingly. This article has grown out of a series of conversations, conferences, and practices during which we interrogated how gender norms/expectations have affected us during the many decades in which we have trained in Aikido. We have both earned the rank of black belt, yet we have experienced Aikido in very different ways, training in different kinds of dojos, coming to the martial arts in very different bodies, and having different genders.
4White began her Aikido training in Japan. Her first instructor, an American woman, taught an all-women’s class shaping White’s sense of the feminist potential within the tradition. White soon moved to a traditional Japanese dojo led by a well-established Japanese male instructor and has primarily trained with male teachers ever since. In the Japanese dojo, the pedagogy common to many traditional arts applied. There was little questioning of the how or why. Rather, silent observation of the teacher’s demonstration and then continuous repetition of techniques in order to eventually embody the form was the expected behavior of a serious student. After three years of training in Japan, White returned to the United States and over the next two decades trained in New York, Colorado and then back and forth to Tokyo for three more years of training in the same dojo before moving to New England where White and Miller-Lane currently train together.
5Although White’s training has been primarily conducted by male teachers, Miller-Lane’s most important Aikido teachers have been female. Miller-Lane had his formative Aikido training in the United States under the guidance of a female instructor who was also trained as a therapist. Unlike the traditional and quiet setting of a Japanese dojo experienced by White, in the American dojo, instructors often provided verbal explanations of the techniques along with the physical demonstration. The Aikido instructor talked with individual students during class and provided verbal feedback to students during training. This instructor encouraged conversations about Aikido and learning Aikido included an intellectual as well as a physical engagement.