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Title [Voices of Youth] Fighting for Peace: Grappling and striking as potential pathways to peacebulding
* Photo is not directly related to the writing. Photo by Mats Sommervold on Unsplash Fighting
for Peace: Grappling
and striking as potential pathways to peacebulding
Caio Amaral
Gabriel
Combats—both
grappling and striking—can be strategic moments in a martial arts training
experience capable of providing the neuroendocrine foundation needed to
optimize the development of prosocial and peacebuilding skills. This insight
can help instructors design martial arts training experiences more
intentionally and deliberately regarding the sequence of moments, activities,
and tasks throughout the training. By
principle, each martial arts training session is an experience in which each
moment promotes effects on the body and influences the practitioner's
development in some way. Interpersonal interactions and the culture of the
training environment are powerful relational and social forms existing in the
context of martial arts capable of influencing human development. In fact, the
human nervous system is physically and biochemically sculpted by social
interactions (Carter & Porges, 2014). A
type of relational experience existing in most martial arts is combat, dynamic
and challenging processes of antagonistic engagement that end in a sense of
altruism and mutual respect (Kimmel & Rogler, 2019; Clapton & Hiskey,
2020), which occur in a controlled way and can be manifest in two broad
categories: grappling and striking. Surprisingly,
both combat categories have been shown to increase the production of a peptide
hormone: oxytocin. Rassovsky et al. (2019) investigated whether the practice of
grappling and striking would result in the production of endogenous oxytocin,
i.e., oxytocin produced by the body itself. For this, the researchers recruited
68 participants, between beginners and advanced in martial arts practice, and
measured the participants' baseline oxytocin level through saliva, and oxytocin
levels immediately after practice in both combat categories and also after the
cooldown. The researchers found that regardless of the participants' level of
expertise, both grappling and striking increased endogenous oxytocin
production, although oxytocin levels were higher after grappling. The
fact that martial arts increase the production of endogenous oxytocin is
relevant because of the broad involvement of this hormone in the emergence of
prosocial and peaceful behaviors. This finding supports that martial arts
programs can be pathways to peacebuilding by having the potential to establish
the neuroendocrine foundation needed to strengthen the prosocial skills needed
to cultivate peace (Britto et al., 2014). But
the effects of oxytocin are not always prosocial (Carter & Porges, 2014). Studies
show that oxytocin has the potential to favor prosocial behaviors, but not in
everyone or in all contexts. In certain cases, oxytocin can contribute to
increased defensive aggression towards “out-group” members, which is the
opposite result of strengthening the culture of peace. Furthermore, oxytocin
may not promote prosociality in individuals with unfavorable caregiving
experiences (van IJzendoorn & Bakermanss-Kranenburg, 2014). What seems to
predict whether or not oxytocin will favor prosocial and peaceful behaviors is
the feeling of safety (Carter & Porges, 2014) experienced by students. Indeed,
humans are on a enduring lifelong quest to feel safe, a biological drive that
appears to be embedded in DNA (Porges, 2022). The feeling of safety provides
the physiological basis that is required for healthy lifelong development,
secure patterns of attachment, positive interpersonal interactions, prosocial
behaviors, learning, restoration, healing (Porges, 2011; 2017; 2021) and
peace-associated behaviors (Carter & Porges, 2014). More specifically,
feeling safe is key for the oxytocin produced through combats to favor
prosocial and peaceful behavior. This suggests that there is a sequence of
fundamentals that must unfold throughout a martial arts training experience to
favor the development of peaceful children who have internalized the values of non-violence
and social justice (Christie et al.,
2014). First, the martial arts instructor seeks
as much as possible to remove existing threat cues that may exist in the
training environment and that might elicit a threat physiology that will create
barriers to learning (Gabriel et al., 2021 have provided examples that may be
helpful for both neurotypical and neuroatypical students). Second, the
instructor can provide safety cues in a number of ways, e.g., by recognizing
their alloparental role and adjusting their leadership style to be a secure
source of attachment for students; intentionally creating a sense of
affiliation and belonging between the student and their peers. Third, once
there is a feeling of safety, the possibility that the moment of combat will
produce oxytocin in a way that favors prosocial and peaceful behavior is increased. After the moment of combat, students will
be in a more favorable neuroendocrine state to carry out activities and tasks
that seek to strengthen characteristics associated with pro-sociality, such as
kindness, love, empathy, social intelligence, impartiality, leadership,
teamwork, forgiveness, morality—at first for “in-group” members. As a next
step, when the instructor observes that there is a maturation of the students
in relation to these development of prosocial skills, a progression can be made
towards peace education after combats, seeking to develop prosocial and peace
competences especially for “out-group” members in ever-widening ecological
systems. Peace can be seen as a domain of
competence that must be nurtured (Masten, 2014) intentionally in students, and
martial arts training experiences can provide an enriched context with the
potential to foster the neuroendocrine foundation necessary for the nurture of
prosocial and peaceful competencies, especially from intentionally designed
activities and tasks that occur subsequent to combat in a training environment that
provides the feeling of safety. This is a way in which martial arts demonstrate
their potential to strengthen sustainable development: from neurobiological
foundations, they can be understood as powerful and concrete pathways to
peacebuilding.
REFERENCES
※ Views in this writing are the author's own. |