Dear Wrestling,
First my very simple, straightforward thoughts on wrestling and pacifism: I have no problem at all with consensual violence between adults. I'm a big fan, in fact, whether that's wrestling or MMA or karate tournaments or my husband teaching me how to do an armbar.
It's nonconsensual violence that I abhor, and I do abhor it--well, let me qualify that, just like I do everything. I myself am very, very tempted by violence on a regular basis. I think more than most people, although there's no way to know for sure. Remember how I said I grew up wanting to be Wolverine? Yeah, not the healthiest problem-solving method, is it? I'm never tempted to mass violence, so never on an international scale. But interpersonal stuff is a problem.
When you enter a Zen Buddhist monastery, everything is extremely regimented. You all sleep at the same time, eat at the same time, do chores, etc. Since the goal is to figure out to live a free and natural human life without suffering, this strikes a lot of (esp. Western) people as either counterintuitive or hypocritical. The idea behind this is that our culture and our habits have so muddled our thinking that we have no idea what it would feel like to just sleep when sleepy, eat when hungry, and so on. There's too much in the way. So, you break it down, live life in its simplest form, and re-learn how to be a human.
When I finally woke up enough to see how instantaneous my violent impulses were, I decided to go completely the opposite direction as much as possible, and then maybe someday I can just be a human about it. Maybe not though, in which case not hurting other people is still a pretty good call.
And let me clarify that, too: it's not like I was going around picking fights and punching people. I've been in two fights in my life, both as a little kid, and one was over a kitten being abused. But the impulses were there, always, and that bothered me. When I made this decision to consciously switch my orientation, it wasn't from punching to not punching, it was from wanting to punch to responding with, "Yes I see what you want, but we never ever do that." (And yes, that is how I talk to myself. *shrug*)
All that to say, here's a letter I wrote to a friend about wrestling and pacifism from a Quaker point of view. As far as I know, it is a true story, but I couldn't find the source and so the names and details are my own. Also, the real name for Quakers is the Society of Friends, so you'll see that here.
