Listen, you need to listen! (and me, too)

In the past couple of days I have been noticing an interesting thing when I talk to some people: They don't listen. I don't want to complain about it because I'm not a perfect listener either and I kind of understand that people have some needs that need to be met; some needs that require that they can freely think what they want even if they are in a training environment and they are there to learn from the person they are talking to. By training environment, I don't really mean aikido training here, however, any kind of training environment can easily be compared to an aikido training which I hope to do towards the end of this post.

Yesterday I went to my workplace which, at the moment, happens to be a big room with a lot of computers. People sit down in front of them, follow the instructions of the online system, read, study and do practical tasks with Word, Excel, etc. When they get stuck or something puzzles them they are supposed to raise their hands and ask from help from a trainer. I'm one of these trainers. After arriving at work yesterday, I went to the first person who raised his hand and had a question. I started explaining, trying my best to figure out what exactly he wanted to know and how I should answerthe question to match his learning style and level of knowledge in the current subject. However, in the middle of my first sentence he interrupted. Interruption is fine because it signals that my approach is not suitable for him and this is usually when I get requests or questions to clarify what I'm trying to say. However, what I got was statements and descriptions. He seemed to know better what he was supposed to do, he wanted to tell me what he'd just done and asked after each of the steps whether what he'd just done he was right. Sometimes I said "that's correct" and sometimes I said "well, I wouldn't do it that way because you won't end up with the results required" or something similar. It didn't matter though. I could say yes, no or I could start a step-by-step description of how it should have been done he kept on saying what he wanted. I felt frustrated. One of the other trainers had already given up on him because no matter what you tried he wouldn't listen. I tried getting a bit harder in my answers; I tried not saying anything (and listen until he was finished); I tried to explain that if he didn't want my answer he should not call us because there was nothing we could give him. He had something in his mind and no other input was accepted from anyone else. He was clearly not comforted an I couldn't do anything about it.

Then I went to another person, and the broken record technique was again used against me, but not in a way I had learned about the method. The broken record technique is about repeating your questions and requests whatever the other person tries to distract you with, and whatever else they want to force you to do. But this learner, similarly to the other one, had statements that didn't require me to respond in any way. She wouldn't listen to instructions but, in contrast, she needed me to listen, that's all that was needed. I didn't feel it was harmonious at all, particularly given that what she was saying was clearly and incorrect solution to the question or task at that time, and that she had called me for help.

This morning I had a visitor to view the flat we are moving out from (studio flat in Wimbledon, let me know if you are interested :)). I went to meet him at the bus stop then we walked back to the flat. He asked "how far is the flat from Wimbledon station by walk?" I said "Fifteen minutes". He asked "Ten minutes, right?" I said "It can be but you need to walk real fast for that". He settled with ten minutes. My ego was fuming that, again, I wasn't listened to, and "how can anyone understand ten when I say fifteeeeen loud and clear!". I can't do anything about him but I'm sure I still need to improve a lot...

Now, how is this connected to aikido?

(don't stop reading if you are not a martial artist, it will soon become interesting)

In my view, aikido and any martial arts and paired or group movement activities have a lot to do with listening. You don't really listen to the voice of your partner there but you listen to their movements and intentions. Not only that, but you also react accordingly, blend and then continue the movements together in harmony. Harmony requires that you read the other's movements, listen to what they are telling with their bodies. Are they going to come close and stop? Are they going to approach with a lot of energy? Are they resisting? Do they want to pull you back? Do they 'die' too easily? You need to listen to the signs of these reactions/intentions/movements and adjust your movements accordingly. Then they adjust their speed, positions and you need to adjust yours again. Practice should become a conversation where someone 'listens' and the other 'talks', then the other listens and you talk, and there can be several exchanges of messages even within one single technique.

Some aikido examples as I see it:

• if you don't step out of the line in time and uke cuts you then you didn't listen enough and didn't adjust well.
• if you step out too early you might have listened very well but adjusted your moves too early, i.e. not well enough.
• if uke grabs you and then stops then it's them who didn't really get the aim of the conversation.
• if you resist a technique because you know what move to expect from tori then no matter whether you listened or not, you are not 'present' in the conversation and, unless you want to teach something to tori who is ready to accept this kind of teaching, your adjustment is incorrect or insufficient.
• you can even talk sometimes in training when explaining someone how to do things, but it should only be done in a way that they can clearly understand. If this is not the case, the tactics needs to be adjusted further.
• if someone is not ready to do a breakfall you shouldn't force them to do it anyway, unless you have some helping ideas in your mind that your partner can accept.
• forcing someone to do something, in general, does not show good listening and adjusting skills.

A listening exercise

The importance of listening has become apparent to me after I tried a generally used listening exercise several times. All you need to do is to sit down (or stand, whatever is comfortable) with a partner in front of each other, and then one person talks for a set period of time (1, 3 or 5 minutes) and the other listens. Listening here means there can be no interruption, no judgement. No judgement even after the speaker has finished. They need to talk about something they care about but they should get your opinion or reaction only if they specifically ask you to give them one at the end of their talking time, or the whole exercise. The listener can then summarise what they have just heard to make sure that what they did was full listening and not just staring at the other. Then they swap roles and now the other person talks and the first listens.

When I first did this exercise it was a bit weird. I kind of expected my partner's immediate reactions to my sentences, judgements and suggestion as to what I should (not) or should (not) have been doing in the situation I was describing or what they had done in similar situations before. Then the speaking turn ended and I heard the summary with only very little (if any) added information that the listener understood. It was also interesting to listen to what emotions my partner thought I had been talking about. The second time was also weird because we did this exercise with the partner's hand on our chests to increase the connection level. The third time was the first one I really enjoyed and didn't feel too uncomfortable (and I also happened to be the person leading the group). Then we had a fourth round, a really informal one (someone might call it a gossiping session but there was no judgement!), which was very good and beneficial, I felt uplifted after talking and not having been judged at all.

As a listener, it wasn't so strange because I am usually quiet and I tend to observe more than doing the talking. Nevertheless, there were hard moments in the listening period as I almost said something after each of the speaker's sentences even though I thought I was a good listener. Sometimes my thoughts started to shift from what was being said and I had to admit to my partner afterwards that I had simply missed some of their sentences. It was also a kind of stressful situation to try to summarise what I'd just heard. I didn't seem to have a lot of experience in summarising (although my PhD topic was summarisation, but a different kind), and I realised I needed much more practice to become a better listener.

Better listening is very important to become better at communication with others, and you can see from the paragraphs at the beginning of this post that I'm somewhere in the middle between conscious incompetence and conscious competence in the learning process. A long way to go, but life would be boring if we could learn everything instantly.

Although this post has been about listening you are still encouraged to post your feedback and say something, even if it's judgemental. It will be read, listened to and answered if you want it.