Rough and Tumble play
Where a son teaches his father how to heal generations of trauma
For those who don't know me, I have clear passion for anything related to the body. More precisely, since I have discover how Shopenhauer had understood from Eastern philosophies like Tantra how the body could be a connection to the mysteries of life (breath, yoga, sexuality) I started my journey to deepened my curiosity.
This eventually took me to a session with Schuyler Brown
https://www.artofemergence.com/
and what stood out was that the ways to the body to be as deep as the universe and implying that one could get lot in mystical experiences doing meditations and different dimensions, etc while right here right now right under our skins was another universe ready to be tapped into that not only could be as powerful but also maybe more practical or realistic or even more intuitive that this other world where we want to escape through spirituality and treat this human condition as sub standard. She invites us into the world of trauma healing, reconnecting through Eros, emotions, the multiple layers of our body awareness and also the Fun that is to move, dance, play, wrestle, climb, love, etc.
Long story short I have come across the work of Rafe Kelley and the importance of rough and tumble play in our social education.
A summary can be found here.
a topic that is not new and mentioned by Jordan Peterson and pointing older scholars.
And last night it brought the insight of how my sons and I were nearly every evening precisely doing that right before dinner. While this was all good for the first 5 years of me being a father, that routine started to tired me and started to depart from it.
I didn't make the connection but my 7 yo started to feel more tense and grumpy for the last year or so. A lot of frustration seemed to pile up and impatience mixed up with boredom and apathy.
Six month ago we enrolled him for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu once a week and within a couple of month he started to calm down and be more grounded.
In parallel I started to study the work of Rafe Kelley more in detail and implemented casually during walks the innocent games of king of the log and gentle wrestling and automatically my son lit up. I started now to suspect that not only he was an introvert but also a kinaesthetic person.
So that rough housing ritual now has become part of the hike musts have.
But although I wanted to tumble in the living room, I often made the mistake or talking and directing far too much. The result was more frustration and bad attitude for weeks and weeks. Until finally about three weeks ago I seemed to have FINALLY found the sweet spot where I am less directing and really more playing and tumbling in a way that is enjoyable for the both of us.
It may be obvious to many of you, but it was simply a continuation of the same concepts where you communicate via touch and show encouragement, let them win, tease them, ridicule them, let them ridicule you hug and tickle, let them apply their BJJ moves and so on and then more giggles popped up. The more grounded voice started to stay longer and when done, after dinner he now disappears and draws in silence and comes back with a beautiful and realistic drawing of weasel or Japanese animé knight.
What also seemed to have helped was the more consistent incorporation of board games (chess, abalone, Uno and Stratego) as an evening ritual about three times a week while listening to a classic LP. He is into The Clash at the moment.
And now to feel like an idiot and think how dumb I was all those last three years where he was having difficulties dealing with his emotions and me being triggered and defaulting more and more often to be more authoritative despite my serious meditation practices.... The answer was right in front of us, he was rolling his eye when I was breaking the tumbling games by trying to turn it into a BJJ and self defence lesson.
All he needed was a friend to rough and tumble, no directives, and grab this opportunity to hug him and laugh.
I don't want to call this completely solved, but now I think I get this and I am so glad we found each other in the process.
Prior to this, he was too proud to accept my hugs and my praise, although he would clearly be in need of recognition because he was crashing those very same moments between me and his young brother of four year ( extrovert, always happy and seems very found of story telling). Now he is more grounded, and in combination of all those achievements at swimming and BJJ and school, we are now set on good tracks.
To think about this rough and tumble play.... I didn't get much of that myself when I was little. I was left on my own in front of the TV because my parents were too busy. The fights between me and my brother would be visceral until I reached seventeen. I had taken up football, but that's not quite the same.
My dad himself seemed to never had that. Him being the seventh of eight kids. He was often forgotten and bullied by his older siblings and his father was also too busy. So, when his adolescence kicked in, he would get involved into maybe ugly fights and got kicked out of schools many times until the age of sixteen or so, where his salvation came in the form of going to the planes and be a cowboy and learn discipline working with horses and the tough life of Colombian farmers. Brotherhood and respect for other healthy men figures along with life in the outdoors and karate from a Japanese master helped him to heal. How could I blame him. From what I know from my grand father, I don't think he had much of that either. Born in 1917, from an bourgeois family, the only way to salvation was strong authority though military service. So with my dad born in 1954, the adolescent clashes were obviously going to be many.
I think I can feel bless that somehow I might have healed a vicious circle of disembodiment. My father tired to pass on his knowledge of fighting and karate to me, but not much stuck with me as the sessions were again far too directive and not fun at all. The seed of following a martial art was however planted there, but I could not take it up until I turned thirty height. And now five years later, I am wondering how and why on earth did I wait so long to get started, as now it's such a big part of my life.
At least I have learned to read better the signs from my son, thanks tumble play. And the need to direct and shout has mostly disappeared. We laugh more, tease more and giggle more. Children are definitely teachers!
Life moves in mysterious ways.