Alert, Record, Share
Constitutional Observer / Aikido
Moon Sensei sent me a video of David Wilson, known as the first gentleman of Columbia Heights. Columbia Heights is the Minneapolis neighborhood where the mayor lives, and Mr. Wilson was speaking about how Minnesota has been responding to the presence of ICE agents.
Rather than advocating confrontation, he suggested the role of a Constitutional Observer. He described this role as having three simple responsibilities: alert, record, and share.
As I listened, I couldn’t help but hear strong parallels to what we work on in a typical Aikido of Alamo class. Much of our practice is centered on the idea of “us” moving out of opposition and into relationship. When there is only “us,” conflict begins to dissolve.
What I realized while watching Mr. Wilson speak was how many important moments in my own life were shaped by making hidden aggression visible, by bringing it into the open and allowing it to be seen, as oppose to the win.
This stands in contrast to a more common response: you threatened me, or someone else, therefore I must retaliate. That view collapses everything into opposition and justification. Observation, by contrast, interrupts that collapse. It does not deny harm, but it refuses to add more force to an already charged situation.
In Aikido terms, this feels familiar. Instead of meeting threat with threat, we stay present. We see clearly. We allow what is happening to be revealed rather than immediately acted upon. Often, that clarity itself changes what is possible.
Yes, Aikido is often misunderstood as a peaceful martial-art ONLY,
a kind of ethical
self-defense that replaces aggression with harmony.
This interpretation, while comforting, misses something essential.
Aikido is not primarily about peace, nor even about conflict resolution. It is about alignment—with reality, with timing, with relationship, and with what genuinely works. In this respect, Aikido stands in quiet continuity with traditions as diverse as
“The Art of War”, *Christian nonviolence*,
*Gandhi’s satyagraha*,
and -Martin Luther King Jr.’s
*Theory of nonviolent action*.
All of these traditions reject the idea that effectiveness lies in domination.
None of them equate success with winning in the ordinary sense. Instead, they converge on a more difficult insight:
The deepest form of power operates by refusing false victories.
In Aikido practice, the practitioner does not oppose force with counterforce. Nor do they retreat into passivity. Rather, they remain present, attentive, and responsive, allowing the aggressive intent of the attacker to reveal itself fully. When there is no fixation on winning or losing, the encounter often reorganizes itself. The conflict dissolves not because it has been suppressed, but because its assumptions no longer hold.
This logic mirrors a central principle in The Art of War. Despite its reputation, Sun Tzu’s text is not fundamentally about violence. It is about accuracy. The highest form of victory,
Sun Tzu writes, is to win without fighting. Force appears in the text not as an ideal, but as a sign that something upstream has already failed—timing, understanding, or alignment with conditions.
The supreme strategist does not impose an outcome but allows reality to clarify itself.
One of the most subtle strategies
Sun Tzu implies is Stalemate. When facing a superior opponent, attempting to win outright often confirms the opponent’s expectations and strengths. Choosing stalemate instead—neither submission nor conquest—disrupts the entire frame of engagement. The opponent expects resistance or surrender; instead, they encounter presence. This is not weakness. It is a form of non-winning that preserves agency without escalation.
Christian nonviolence expresses a similar logic through the language of witness. In the Gospels, nonviolence is not presented as social harmony, but as radical exposure. Christ before Pilate does not attempt to overpower or persuade through force; he remains present, truthful, and uncoercive.
The power of this stance lies in visibility. Violence loses its justification when it is no longer mirrored or concealed. Nonviolence here is not peacekeeping—it is clarity under pressure.
Martin Luther King Jr. articulated this explicitly in his concept of
“creative tension.” Nonviolent action, for King, was never about avoiding conflict. It was about refusing to let conflict collapse into brutality or denial. By making injustice visible and unavoidable, nonviolence forced systems to confront themselves. This was not sentimental idealism; it was a strategy grounded in psychological and social realism. When aggression is exposed without being returned, its moral and structural contradictions intensify.
Gandhi’s satyagraha—often translated as “truth-force”—pushes this logic even further.
Gandhi understood nonviolence not as politeness, but as disciplined refusal to cooperate with falsehood. Suffering, when it appeared, was not valued for its own sake, but because it revealed asymmetries of power that coercion depended on remaining hidden. Conversion, not conquest, was the goal—not conversion through argument alone, but through sustained authenticity.
Across all these traditions, a shared principle emerges: Nonviolence is NOT peace.
It is confrontation without coercion. It is engagement without domination. It is the decision to remain aligned with truth and reality even when winning would be easier.
Aikido expresses this physically. The practitioner does not seek to defeat the attacker but to remain centered, connected, and responsive. When there is only “Us,” opposition begins to dissolve. This does not guarantee resolution, but it preserves the conditions under which resolution remains possible. “Stalemate”, in this context, is not failure. It is often the most honest outcome available.
Seen this way, nonviolence is a method of communication. It says: I will not overpower you, and I will not disappear. This stance destabilizes aggression because aggression depends on reciprocity or collapse. When neither occurs, the system must reorganize.
The supreme practitioner—whether martial artist, activist, or witness—is not one who wins, but one who refuses to lie about reality for the sake of victory. They do not seek peace as an endpoint, nor conflict as an identity. They seek alignment: with what is true, what works, and what can persist without breaking.
In Aikido,
in Sun Tzu,
in Christian witness, in Gandhi,
and in King,
the same insight appears in different forms: the deepest transformations do not occur through force, but through sustained clarity. Non-winning is not indecision. It is fidelity to reality when reality itself is under pressure.
Non-violence is
Non-War and
Non-Peace and
Non winning or loosing.
Great picture as usual Scott and one of the most interesting posts you have done,
-All of your posts are outstanding,
but maybe because of this one is happening in real time And probably because I’ve been working with you for a while.
I will probably have to do another comment on here because of so many thoughts generated by reading your post here.