Sunday 22 April 2007, Dili, East Timor

Floating....

I taught an aikido class today. I expected just to train especially since there was a Japanese yudansha teaching at the University here in Dili. However the current crisis has played havoc even with the training schedule with people being too scared to travel to train. Although we did have a small turnout when they heard that I was in town and interested in training.

It turns out that the Japanese instructor trained in Japan, was a shodan (1st degree black belt) so I was asked to take the class. An interesting experience all around. First of all I was expecting to be taught by a Japanese instructor, not to have to be the one teaching. Second, the language gap sometimes made getting the message across a trifle difficult. The poor students not only had to contend with doing the technique like I demonstrated, but also they were sometimes let down by my translator Reis who often got lost in watching the movement that he forgot to translate! Third, it would seem that as soft as I try to be in my execution of the technique, this was much harder than the group was used to. So there were many loud yelps and exclamations as we went through various techniques. But they thanked me, and were genuine in their hospitality. It was interesting that it seemed that they liked relating the technique to real life and that when I asked them to add in an additional attack rather than work simply statically they managed to pick things up far quicker. Possibly a comment on how much a part of Timorese society and culture knowing how to fight is...

I might go back on Thursday on the 39th anniversary of the death of Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of Aikido, to train with them. I am quite interested in the reaction of people to the notions of non-violence inherent in Aikido. It seems as if they have not been exposed to a different way of doing things.

I then had an interview with a shorini-kempo instructor. Who also happens to be a law professor at a private university in Dili. Reis, the interpreter, was very pleased I got to talk to him because he had done kempo for a short while in the not-so-distant past. A martial artist for the last 30 years, I found in him, as in the Kung Fu Master I interviewed yesterday, a deep understanding of the transcendent meaning of martial arts training - that it is training to become better people, not to destroy others. For him, the martial arts had 4 functions:

• To train the body physically;
• To train the mind spiritually;
• To equip the practitioner with the ability to defend him/herself; and
• To make the world a beautiful place.
  

That would be the seed to nurture amongst these various groups if they are truly to become a 'constituency for peace'.

In the middle of the day here, while across the seas Cape Town was maybe just waking up to the fact that Sunday had arrived, I went down to a beach just east of the city called White Sands. Here I found another contingent of internationals frolicking in the waves. This time the SUVs lined along the shore were mainly from the UN Police. The restaurants along the beach were also doing a roaring trade.

On a promontory overlooking the bay, the second largest statue of the Christ stands majestic in the sunlight (conceding first place only to the statue in Rio). A gift from the (muslim) government of Indonesia to the predominantly Catholic province (then) of Timor-Leste. Facing east. To Indonesia. A few years later the Indonesian army and allied militia systematically burnt and destroyed infrastructure as they withdrew from the territory.

But as I lay floating on my back in the azure waters, bobbing gently on the swell, looking up at the puffy clouds in an impossibly blue sky, the distant sounds of Reis and Nelson (my new driver) playing soccer on the shore with a group of Timorese youth, and with the beatific sight of the Christ's outstretched hands over me all of the issues facing East Timor seemed so far away.. I could just float out into the bay, keep on floating, supported by the endless ocean......