Any activity involving two or more people may be seen as an interaction, more or less complex.

Since it is not possible to keep an interaction in a constant state of neutrality, the interaction itself generates an exchange of actions, a kind of giving and receiving. It is not possible to come into contact with somebody without this interaction taking place, without generating this kind of exchange.

Whether it is the small circle of family relationships or whether we look at society, we all experience the fragility of relationships. We all directly experience the consequences of asymmetries. We know, or at least we feel, what it means to give or receive too much or too little.

The same thing happens in the practice of Martial Arts. When, in a couple, one gives too much and the other receives too little, the technique appears violent, non-linear.

Conversely, when one gives too little and the other absorbs excessively, the technique appears empty, distorted, boycotted.

And it is common experience that, in such situations, the frustration of both partners leads to sharp judgments. Generally it is always “the other’s fault” or, at the very least, the practice partner is little less than the missing link between garbage and a protozoan.

The good news is that these are exactly the conditions in which the constant practice of a martial discipline helps the individual to be aware of the quality of the relationships in which he/she acts. An awareness that allows him/her not only to stand in front of a mirror to understand his/her own attitudes but also and above all to modify them.

Martial disciplines are a place of paradoxes. They arise from the need to generate the maximum of imbalances (to definitively defeat the opponent on a battlefield) yet they live for the purpose of restoring the most stable of balances to those who practice them.

So can this balance be trained? Can we train the ability to be within relationships in a more balanced way?

Absolutely yes: the practice allows you to shift the focus from the concept of “giving/receiving” to the experience of giving and giving without limitations (forgiving). Living each technical exchange with constant attention to listening to oneself and to the other, allows you to understand that what we do is learning to offer what we are, to the best of what we can (giving) and to welcome it without reservations, ready to reverse the role in turn (forgiving).

It is no coincidence that, net of objective biomechanical limitations, the practice brings out physical blocks, asymmetries, stiffening… That is where our ability to give and forgive meets its limits and it is exactly by working on such blocks, through the language of the technical program, that we can rebalance our capability to be within relationships.

All this cannot and must not have the saccharine taste of a moralizing pseudo-religiosity. Sometimes spirituality -which is also an essential component of the human experience- can hide a shortcut to not see (and not elaborate) personal limits.

Rather, realizing the practice also as a gym in which to train the art of giving and the virtue of forgiving responds to an ethical imperative that speaks to our deepest part and therefore concerns everyone.

Disclaimer: picture by Kim Stiver from Pexels