Uncle John’s Log & Co.

The discipline of aikido is known as a “soft” martial art, but during my period of training it became clear that the defensive moves were ineffective if executed without a certain vigor. On the other hand, an application of too much energy was counterproductive, impeding the ability to flow with the attack. The practitioner was at risk if he became the aggressor. However, by contrast, the dispatch with which one hopes to end an encounter is clearly not the finality of becoming a victim, and that necessitates learning how to find the proper way to redirect incoming force. There are times when you must step directly into the face of an assault to protect yourself. Much of my emphasis during that time of study was overcoming a natural inhibition to act, but with just the right amount of decisiveness. It didn’t come easy. It required focus, relaxation, timing, and fearlessness.

An even less competitive practice is yoga. If one seeks to “win” yoga, it immediately becomes something else. Nevertheless, most, if not all, yoga postures lose their essential value if one “wimps out.” But what’s the difference between pushing too hard and “surrendering” into the pose? Where is that elusive intermediate ground that exists between mere athleticism and withdrawing from the challenge.

People are surprised to learn that I haven’t cut my grass with a gas-engine mower for two or three years. I guess it’s been since my Uncle Art died. He gave me his Craftsman rotary push mower when he moved away from his house on Fernwood. He’d gotten away from relying on it when he wasn’t physically up to it anymore. I didn’t dedicate myself to using it until after he died. I don’t know how old the darn thing is, but I think he used it for a long time. Because I considered myself a “townie” like Uncle Art, and our yards were about the same size, I figured I would give it a try—as a quiet way to honor his memory.

Some things are easier than they look. Using Uncle Art’s lawn mower is not one of them. It’s tough. Or I should say it’s tough to use it well—in other words, to cut grass. It’s easy to push it very slow, but nothing much happens, and it’s not difficult to push it very fast, but the blades spin too rapidly to cut. I’ve learned that I have to find just the right inertia to get it to “bite.” The challenge is that this proper biting speed requires the most stamina. You don’t have to understand mechanics to know it must have something to to with the physics of “work.” Now I know one of the ways Uncle Art stayed trim and avoided the Seitz roundbelly. Undoubtedly, I need to sharpen the blades, but I know that same “middle way” phenomenon is there to experience in human-powered lawn mowing, too.

And the more I look around me or examine my personal challenges, the “middle way” and its mysteries keep perplexing me. How do people master it? How does the Indy-car driver learn the margin between being passed and hitting the wall or blowing an engine? How does the salesman find the sweet spot between an off-putting overconfidence and the telltale signs of desperation? Would my son Bruce have lost his life last year if he hadn’t achieved the rare zone between fighting and giving up? I once had a young cyclist observe the way I was hitting my brakes on a downhill curve, and he said later, “Just remember—speed is your friend.” Hmm. The way I’d heard it, “Speed kills.”

Eager or patient? Audacious or cautious? Assertive or receptive?

Seize the day, by God.

        — or —

Let go and let God?

Somewhere in between, lad. Somewhere in between.