Tools for transformation and healing:

Physical exercises embodying non-violence strategy:

• Study and application of the compassion and peace making principles of Aikido
• Meditation practices to enhance awareness, and create the stillness to be able to listen and communicate from the heart
• Theater. Performance, Improvisation. Painting:for engaging the imagination and the creative process in order to explore and be open to what is possible
• Interactive exercises and process work for dialogue and to open up to communication and understanding
• Working with kids, teenagers and adults in the schools, communities, and in the workplace.

Just think if the world was blind. Would we determine a friend by the feel of a hand or the sound of a voice? Couldn't we be one race, united and strong with the color of grace on our face?    Alvaro

It has been years since my visits teaching meditation and peacemaking at Central Juvenile Hall. Occasionally I have dropped in to see the continuing work of friends teaching meditation in the high risk offenders units. In more recent years my time has been spent getting to know the wonderful and hard working community of folks outside the prison facilities that work with kids in probation, gangs, and at risk, to keep them from a life of incarceration. I have collaborated with many programs within schools and in organizations set up in the neutral zones away from gang territory, mostly in the South Central LA area. The needs are endless, yet the ability to keep a child in a program engaged and coming back, hand in hand with the many obstacles in their life blocking their success or completion of the program, have been a real challenge to many organizations funding and survival.

In any normal situation of learning and mentoring it is up to the teacher to stimulate and engage a child's imagination and ability to learn, but these are not normal situations and they call for a deeper understanding of what these kids are facing.

Some children have a family legacy of prison life, and most are living in conditions and environments where there is a small margin for mistakes before there lives become lost in the juvenile court system. From my view of being both inside and outside of the system and the many tools offered and programs available, I have found the essential and most important lesson I am bringing to any child is there gaining self respect.

Look at Me! The judge did not look at me,   not once did he look at me. It hurts because he gave me 17 years and he couldn't even look at me. It makes me wonder why.   Janice

Elijah Anderson in his book, Code of the Street, writes, "in the inner-city environment respect on the street may be viewed as a form of social capital that is very valuable, especially when various other forms of capital have been denied or are unavailable. Not only is it protective; it often forms the core of the person's self esteem, particularly when alternative avenues of self-expression are closed or sensed to be. This campaigning for respect can play itself out in a Capitalistic America, where material gain translates as a predominant source of holding a position of respect. Respect becomes a commodity and it loses its broader meaning."

Anderson also writes about the inner cities view of 'decent' and 'street' individuals. "Whether one defines themselves decent, accepting mainstream values more fully than street families, and instill in their children responsibility and hope for the future, or street where there lives are often marked by disorganization and less cohesion in the family. The street individual is viewed as operating from desperate means and will resort to violence to keep their honor in tact, while decent individuals have to at times use force and even threat to protect their values and families from the street life."

I would like to add that there are echoes of this far away from the inner cities, where people of privilege operate from a position of fear or greed, that no amount of wealth seems to satisfy. Poverty breeds violence, but so does privileged, and the assumption of entitlement.   Rich or poor, violence to humans and other species plays itself out in our search for safety and acknowledgment.

An Imprisoned Slave

Why does my heart seem so cold and dark? it feels like it has been torn apart.

My life feels like an imprisoned slave. I'm told when to sit and when to bathe.

Is it because of the mistakes I've made?

It's hard to tell     Nathaniel

I have worn my heart inside and out trying to fix the lives of any number of children and the young adults I have come into contact with in my work as a peace maker. I now see more clearly than ever that there is no quick fix. It is in relationship and respect that we are seen and can see another. What is more important than anything else is for me to show my respect for these young people and show them how I respect myself. By this they come to their own sense of self respect and respect of others.

I've been told that my heart is 'a black empty box.' What most people don't know about me is that I can be as gentle as a falling leaf on a beautiful autumn day.     Eric

Currently I am operating out of my own dojo (training space for martial arts ) with the Young Aiki Warriors class.

My classes promote diversity. Kids from families able to afford monthly dues mix with kids from families who can't. These children are funded by scholarships from donations by students and others.

Currently I am offering workshops and retreats to schools and organizations, adults, young people and kids, in peace education and non violence training as the "Playful Warrior."

 
Why the Playful Warrior? Out of play comes the impossible, the unknown, the imagination, the creative, the spontaneous and possible future. A warrior is ready to bring people back to see one another, connect, respect each other, in times of chaos, and confusion.

I do it all with serious play!

If you would like to support us and our new budding foundation your donations are welcome.

We are the Five Changes Foundation.

So if anyone were to ask me what love is, I guess instead of telling them. I'd have to show them.   Daniel

With thanks to Dan Pomeroy, Catherine Veritas, Jane Atkins, and Leigh Curran of The Virginia Avenue School Project for their ongoing support of the Playful Warrior™

The quotations in this article are from What We See: poems and essays from inside Juvenile Hall from  

Inside Out, a creative writing program.

Contact Michele Benzamin-Miki Sensei:

Manzanita Village, PO Box 67

Warner Springs CA 92086, USA

at Manzanita Village 760-782-9223

Mobile 310-339-3531

email aikido@ordinarydharma.org