Community Concepts (August 2024)

08/01/2024

Dojo Philosophy for Everyday Life

Unity is home to four established schools. A few years after we opened, Martin Eisele who is a long time Tai Chi teacher and acupuncturist came to join forces with the Cuong Nhu school. His school, Inner Flow Tai Chi, has been a part of Unity for more than ten years. Since the pandemic and our growth to a 9000 square foot facility, we’ve brought two other established schools into the fold. Martha Richardson’s Little Rock Iyengar Yoga now teaches a full schedule of classes at Unity, as does Matt Smith’s Nemesis Brazilian Jiujitsu. The four head instructors of Unity’s schools combined have over 130 years of experience in their fields! This combined experience between like-minded, cross training teachers, leads me to one of Cuong Nhu’s additions to our core Philosophy the 3 O’s Principle.

The first three O’s refer to our basic stance on people, life, and training. Open Mind means to listen to everything even when it contradicts what you “know,” since testing your ideas makes them stronger and allows for unexpected growth. Open Heart tells us not to make assumptions about anyone and to leave room for ourselves to grow in our ability to love and care. Open Arms is our directive to act on what we uncover with our open mind and heart. Passively being open doesn’t change the world. Only this openness in motion can change lives and communities.

This 3 O’s principle is painted over the entryway to Unity and is at the core of all our other philosophies. After black belt, we get two more to add to the list. There’s a reason we need maturity in order to integrate these concepts. The first three O’s are about beginnings. They never fail to serve at any stage, but they are about how we learn and grow, take on new ideas, and build our community.

The 4th O is Open Eyes. As our openness accumulates more and more, we end up taking on a lot. Things that served at one time can wither and become a hindrance. Ideas, people, behaviors that once helped us grow or stay safe, can hold us back as the world and our lives change. Open Eyes means that within our openness we are not only open to new things, but to the value of the existing components in our lives. Our mature growth is not just about novelty and growth, but about refinement and elegance.

The 5th O is Open Doors. As we gain vision and our greater mission becomes clear, we need to be able to let things go. While we’re still open to new things, new people, and new action, we now also must be able to let go of people, things, and ideas that no longer serve our vision. As we grow, our maturity means that we also re-evaluate our practice constantly, leaving doors open for things to move in and out as necessary.

One of the joys of having 130 years of teaching experience under one roof at Unity has been cross training not only our arts, but our teaching methods. The four head instructors have all absorbed different lessons in our practices along with those we share. We have common goals of building people up, helping them recover from wounds and trauma, and keeping them safe from harm while training them to excel. Our lives, though, have encountered different lessons, solved different puzzles, and benefitted from different gifts. We can all continue learning and refining no matter how much we already know.