Santa Maria Times , Central Coast Times, & Times Press Recorder

Written by Steve Corbett. January 9, 2006

Aikido teacher uses art to view conflict as disharmony

Loving protection can heal the world.

These are words to live by for Grover Beach aikido instructor Stephen Steger, a 5th-degree black belt who founded Full Circle Aikido and teaches the Japanese martial art full-time to men, women and children who travel from as far as Lompoc and Santa Maria to the south and San Luis Obispo and Templeton to the north.

Together they practice all levels of this physical and spiritual discipline that treats the most harmful attacks as if they were the most precious gifts.

Knife-wielding assailants can be embraced. Barroom brawlers can be neutralized. Maniacs can be restrained. Violence can be stemmed - all with the utmost concern for the most vicious attacker.

Steger, 42, says peace can be found in blending and non-resistance.“A lot of martial arts look at conflict as a situation to control,” he says. “There's some validity to that. You can actually take that route. Aikido looks at conflict as a place of disharmony, a place where we're not listening to one another, where we're not understanding one another's perspective, where we have a need that must be met but we're choosing a different way to meet that need.

“We're always trying to go to the higher ground. So, physically, aikido is about taking aggression or force or someone else's attempt to control us and getting behind that force, getting behind that physical attack, unbalancing it and then taking them down, redirecting it to the ground.

“One of the advantages in aikido is after that point where you now have control, you actually have taken the center, taken the situation. You make a choice not to destroy.”

Aikido is not about fighting in a cage before a blood-thirsty crowd.

Steger teaches no attacks, no competition and no malice.

“A lot of people figure the way to avoid any conflict in the future is destroy the person now,” he says.

Revenge and destruction are not the answer.

Aikido is the calm in the middle of the storm.

Technique matters, of course. But purity of heart in the human arena matters most. In aikido, a life-giving sword means far more than a death-dealing sword.

“Physically, in aikido, we have an opportunity to know in our heart that we can cut loose, we can go full power and with the adrenaline pumping and our instincts working, which are protective, and we have a good sense that that person is going to be alive when we leave at the end of that conflict if it gets physical,” Steger says.

Aikido skills enable us to adapt to attacks on and off the training mat.

“At the very basic level we start by cooperating so when somebody throws, a student throws another student, you're not resisting that throw. You're going down with it, gravity takes you down, and you go down with gravity, you go down with the force of the throw.

“On one level we're learning that it's okay to go with a strong direction, with a strong will. That could be somebody has a very passionate idea about something and we're stuck on our opinion and we go, ‘You know, they really convinced me differently.' And you go with that. They're strongly motivated with their will,” Steger says.

“So in aikido, if someone throws, we go, ‘Yeah, let's go with that.' It teaches us how to get off our agenda and change when we feel like it's a really good idea and also allows the partner to explore martial arts without getting injured on a regular basis.

“The founder of aikido said that cooperation is a requirement for aikido practice.”

Cooperation might also be the secret to survival.

The relaxed, circular motion of this graceful, powerful art utilizes an attacker's strength, weight and energy. Redirecting an otherwise harmful and even potentially fatal attack is always a plus.

“From one spectrum are people who don't believe in anything but violence or force,” Steger says. “And other people don't even want anything to do with violence or force.

“Somewhere in between are people who are struggling with one side or the other and sometimes they need one and sometimes they need the other and aikido gives you an opportunity on a regular basis to put ideas and belief systems into a practical application.

“And not just physically, of course, but with verbal conflict, which is the most common conflict by far.”

Like all training, aikido takes time to develop.

As a professional aikido instructor since 1987, Steger has cultivated a deep appreciation of the beauty and subtlety in the art that he reverently hands down to anyone who wants to learn.

Reaching out with a healing human connection, Steger is living testimony that peace and love are possible - a guide blessed with the belief that they both one day will prevail.