Greetings all,
In light of the current global societal conditions, we wanted to take a moment to consider how FCMA can help us maintain physical distance but remain socially connected in the face of COVID-19.
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen the unprecedented global step of widespread social distancing measures to stem the spread of Coronavirus, or what has been referred to as 'flattening the curve'. Whilst absolutely necessary to prevent further spread of the virus and the physical suffering it causes, the socio-emotional challenges and consequences this poses to us as an interdependent social species are great.
Some of the dilemmas we are faced with are: how do we compassionately balance protecting and caring for ourselves and others from increased physical distance? What on earth can the Martial Arts teach us and afford us to these ends?
The concept of Maai from the Martial Arts is particularly pertinent and useful to us all right now. Maai refers to the space between oneself and (an)other, or what can be described as the 'engagement distance'. Breaking this down further, ma refers to the spatiotemporal distance between two (or more) persons, whilst ai refers to the harmony in the encounter between persons (Masciotra et al., 2001). In the martial arts, maai is "...allowing [them] to judge the overall timing and distance necessary for each to carry out his or her intentions’’ (Frederic, 1991, p. 151).
Whilst in combat this may refer to how one manages to be simultaneously (defensively) farthest away whilst (offensively) closest, this equally applies to the following dilemma posed by COVID-19: How do we keep a safe and appropriate physical distance whilst staying (affiliatively) socially engaged, connected and available?
From an FCMA perspective, Compassionate Maai is the harnessing of our radically embodied compassion to adopt a stance that honours and respects the decreed physical distance between each other at present, whilst remaining affiliatively socially engaged. In short, Compassionate Maai dynamically affords us and others physical protection AND socio-emotional protection.
If we can practice this and bring it to everyday encounters, we can enact compassion (and compassionate flow) by protecting ourselves and others through flexible physical distancing balanced with signalling and offering care to each other. We can practice and achieve this through drawing on and adapting FCMA stance and guard work, which allows us to flexibly shift between and blend self-protective and other-focused caring motivations.
So our message from FCMA is an invitation to practice Compassionate Maai: stay physically safe through appropriate distancing whilst remaining emotionally engaged and close.
We will explore the ‘how to do' of Compassionate Maai in a future blog post. In the meantime, take care and stay safe,
Neil and Syd