Schooling my Face

"Stupid Face" can be very helpful when
disarming an attacker.  I'm very good at it.

Here's why I'm practicing "schooling my face":

Head Cues

When playing together, musicians often give cues, like: "Yep, we're going to change tunes," or, "Want to take a solo?" with a head shake, a significant look, or a nod. I've been working on giving more unambiguous cues. My problem is that I have a bad habit of making facial expressions and head shakes as a reaction to my own playing. Not only does everyone know when I make a mistake, but the other musicians think I'm shaking my head because I don't want to take the solo! So, I'm practicing "schooling my face."

Chinese School Has Just Begun

My husband is Chinese, and he has told me you can often tell whether someone who is Chinese was raised in the U.S. or in China by the intensity of their facial expressions. He's not sure why, but he says that growing up in a Chinese culture there was much less focus on how people feel. (Example: we greet by saying, "How are you?" or "How are you feeling?" In Chinese, the greeting is "Have you eaten?") You can see his feelings by looking at his jaw and his eyes. I, on the other hand, use every one of the 43 of the muscles in my face to show how I feel!

Stupid Face

In Aikido, "schooling your face" is vitally important, for several reasons:

• The success of your response depends on you not telegraphing what you are going to do. Since it's particularly hard to control your face and eyes, that's where people automatically look.
• Using a "stupid face" - i.e. looking like you're frightened and have no idea what to do, is actually part of the technique to mentally disarm your attacker. You can't practice this unless you can control whether your face is relaxed.
• A relaxed face is a sign that you're body is relaxed. When your body is relaxed, you can do almost everything better.

That last point is true for aikido, music, and life. That's why I'm gonna keep on practicing.