Is it possible a creative practice of peace-making and non-violence through the teaching: art of reconciliation

We live in transition time. This time is period of crisis and rethinking of culture [1; 2]. There many conflicts, violence and dangerous challenges. And we need new creative practices for humanization education and peace-making [3].

The title of my first Martial Arts book for young people, 'Facing the Double

Edged Sword', [6] is a metaphor for the fight-or-flight survival mechanism in the deeper recesses of our brains. You may have experienced this fight-or-flight mechanism at one time or another in response to a threat to your survival. If you have a cat or dog, you probably have seen your pet react when confronted by a threat. The animal reacts according to this built-in survival mechanism by either attacking (fight) or running (flight), depending on the specific conditions.

The human fight-or-flight mechanism reacts, in certain circumstances, in the same mode as that of the animal. When, for instance, a bully on the playground confronts a young person, the victim usually has only this fight-or-flight option available to him or her. The brain relies on this more primitive mode of dealing with hostile aggression because it hasn't been shown anything else. Adults generally only reinforce this method of dealing with conflict by telling the young person to either fight or "turn the other cheek".

If we are truly concerned about our children's welfare as they grow up, we must take the issue of understanding conflict seriously and offer our children better

Креативная экономика и социальные инновации Creative Economics and Social Innovations options. If we want to bring about a safe and peaceful world, we must help them develop alternative methods to our instinctual primitive reactions to threat. The terrible violence that is going on in the world today, the thousands of years of wars we've suffered, I believe, is stimulated at least in part by our primitive fight-or-flight animalistic behavior. We must help young people understand and creatively, non-destructively deal with conflict. We educate young people in math, science, language, history, sports, and a multitude of other subjects. Why not in understanding conflict?

A few concerned adults who have addressed this issue of teaching about what causes conflict to young people have made good beginnings. Some have tried to show young people intellectually how to get out of conflict. For example, some teachers have demonstrated ways of talking one's way out. Others have taught children to defend themselves physically in the hope that this would deter a bully's attempt to hurt them. What we rarely have done is to combine the two - the intellectual with the physical. Together they provide a complete approach to solving conflict. Many people resist teaching young children to defend themselves since they think that violence only breeds violence. If self-defense is all that is taught, then the outcome may very well be only violence. But if the young person is also taught nonviolent alternatives to conflict (through role-playing), then the child is capable of coming up with more creative ways of dealing with a potentially hostile situation.

The mind that is not caught up in fear, and therefore not caught up in the primitive fight-or-flight reaction, can think more clearly and intelligently and will come up with other methods of dealing with the problem that will open the possibility of ending conflict before it starts [4; 5].

This is how it works: The skills of physical self-defense give the young person confidence. This confidence assures him or her that he or she can handle a potentially violent situation. The acquisition of these skills circumvents the primitive fight-or-

Креативная экономика и социальные инновации Creative Economics and Social Innovations flight mechanism. If in a potentially threatening situation, a child has been taught to defend him or herself, the message to the brain does not immediately stimulate that primitive animalistic reaction. Instead of fighting or running away, one can pause in readiness. In the "pause" there is a moment of calm, an abatement of the fear that stimulates fight-or-flight. Confidence lessens fear and de-activates this automatic survival mechanism.

In this "pause" there is room to deal with the potential threat in new ways. This is where teaching the young person nonviolent alternatives come into play. The mind that is not caught up in fear, and therefore not caught up in the primitive fight-or-flight reaction, can think more clearly and intelligently and will come up with other methods of dealing with the problem that will open the possibility of ending conflict before it starts. The teaching of physical self-defense skills and intellectual conflict resolution skills together is a whole, integrated approach. One is dependent on the other.

There is no doubt that the effects of these skills taught in youth will naturally have an effect on adult life. Understanding the fundamental causes of conflict, as well as learning conflict resolution skills at an early age, will also increase the chance of young people entering adulthood and approaching life with a more intelligent and nonviolent understanding of relationships. A young person taught to understand and deal with conflict knows that violence is not an acceptable way to solve the problems of relationships. The mind is unable to distinguish between a real or illusory threat, and thus responds as if the threat is real, regardless.

There is another issue related to the "fight or flight" reaction, which is the mind's inability to distinguish between a physical or psychological threat, and an imagined vs real threat. Hollywood has exploited the Martial Arts by portraying them as lethal fighting. This notion makes for a sensational appeal to our more basic primitive human responses. All these violent images in Martial Arts and other

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"action" films psychologically stimulate a fight-or-flight reaction even though the threat is not physically present. In other words, the media's exposure of violent images triggers the mind's/body's response as if the image were real - as if the image were an actual physical threat to our well-being. With the ongoing stimulation of violent, "life threatening" images, the brain is constantly on alert, using up a tremendous amount of energy to defend against a ghost of a threat - one that simply isn't there. Watching constant violence puts our "fight-or-flight" mechanism in a permanent "on" mode, causing our bodies to continually produce chemical reactions to combat an invasion that in reality is not taking place.

This response to such visual presentations creates tremendous fear. It causes us to always be on guard. It is not unusual to see global paranoia of "The Enemy. " This feeling that everyone is out to get us, that we need to be constantly on guard, reinforces the feeling of isolation and separatism and seeing ourselves as the psychological entities being threatened. "I'm in danger!" is the psychological response we get when images of violence create the fear of a real imminent physical threat. When the brain receives a psychological image of violence and interprets it as an actual physical threat, it reacts in a personal, psychological, defensive manner. It has a psychological fight-or-flight reaction.

In an actual combat situation when confronting a real danger to one's physical well-being, one would need to actually fight or actually flee from the potential harm. But when the threat, via violent images, is merely psychological, then a physical fight-or-flight response is not appropriate. When this occurs, the brain goes through a mock fight-or-flight, playing out the scenario psychologically, which has the effect of producing heightened fear because the tension created by the supposed threat, cannot be alleviated. This interpretation by the brain of greater fear provides even more justification that "I am being threatened".

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Thus, it seems to me that the brain's response to violent visual images portrayed on television, in the movies, in violent video games, and in magazines can have a tremendously dangerous effect on behavior. I feel they are helping to create and sustain violence worldwide. I'm not asking anyone to accept these statements as truth, but rather as a working hypothesis, an insight into the nature and structure of violence. Each of you must decide for yourself if what has been said here is true or not. If it is true, then we have good reason to pursue inquiry into this urgent situation and develop programs in which we can teach young people to understand conflict and resolve it nonviolently. We must, in my view, not only teach children about conflict resolution at the symptomatic level but also delve much deeper into what creates and sustains violence. Symptomatic solving of conflict is reform and does not address the problem fundamentally.

In my experience, Martial Arts training is a unique way to help us understand violence and, therefore, can be a unique and successful way to deal intelligently with conflict resolution provided that both physical and mental skills are taught holistically - that is, together.

The need to help our children learn new solutions to violence is of paramount importance. As a parent, I feel it necessary to teach these skills in school, as well as in the community. It should be an integral part of the curriculum. Surely this issue dominates our lives more than, say, math or science alone. As a teacher, I know that it can be incorporated within the daily operation of classroom activities both within the Martial Arts School and public and private schools. Having been a school administrator, I know that programs combining a healthy discipline in Martial Arts training, accompanied by developing nonviolent alternatives, can be incorporated into the overall school structure. Parents see the need to teach conflict resolution, and understand how vital this need is. They know that children can be taught to successfully cope with violence in creative ways, because they have seen it happen.

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