There but for...

Clare

One large area of my life that I hinted at earlier but didn’t really discuss is a lifelong passion for martial arts. I mean “martial arts” in the broad sense, not just the “kicking people while wearing pajamas” sense. I actually didn’t start any regular martial arts training until college. But I have a passion for weaponry of many kinds and always have. I enjoy thinking about combat strategy (more single person and small group than military strategy). So from a young age I collected both weapons and “weapons.”

During my childhood, my mother had a complete ban on my acquisition of edged weapons, other than the Swiss army knife I carried constantly from second grade on, and anyone familiar with knives will tell you that’s worse than no weapon. I did manage to slide a couple of lousy knives past her watchful eye (cheap sword cane for example, again, probably no knife would have been better than that knife). I also foreshadowed my eventual lawyer-ness by exploiting loopholes. Whips, for example, are not “edged weapons” Mom. Nor are wooden versions of knives. Bows and arrows, walking sticks, wallet chains…

That was how my particular interest in “everyday object as weapon” got started. And I have carried that along in a number of ways. I made beaded jewelry for quite a while. I worked out a line of extremely sturdy necklaces, meditation beads, and the like that could be used for self-defense if one was properly trained to use such things.

As a child my go-to was a yo-yo. Today that’s an “everyday object” but its origin of course was as a weapon. Following the “security-theater” nonsense after 9/11 I started a little game seeing how many things that *I* could use as a weapon (but that are perfectly ok ordinary things you can take through airport security) I could carry on. My record was 24 not counting regular clothing or reaching too far into “sure I could use this piece of paper as a weapon, but would I really?” land.

So that inclination was there when I started college and suddenly had access to a real Karate class taught by a dorm-mate, and to classes through the University. I took to the kicking-while-wearing-pajamas version of “martial arts” like a duck to water. (If that duck had one wing, four legs, had been raised in a desert, and was afraid of water.)  It’s totally possible to love a thing and be terrible at it for a long time. I recommend it.

Since then I’ve studied several arts, mostly based on availability. Some of those styles that award belts have awarded me belts, topping out in what I consider my “primary” art at a 3rd degree black-belt. I’ve since “retired” to arts that are more “theoretically-fighting” than “realistically-fighting.” But this is a lifelong passion and I will always be a martial artist, regardless of my physical capacity to withstand or inflict mayhem (more mayhem than you’d imagine can be inflicted, and withstood, without a lot of physical capacity FYI. Don’t let age or frailty stop you.)

“I thought this was about Competence?” Yes, just taking an excuse to give some background for things I’ve learned about competence while training with hundreds or thousands of different people. Physical training provides an interesting lens through which to learn about people. Here I’ll focus on my topic, examples of competence and Competence. 

So let me be clear, I do not think that fighting skills (or self-defense skills as the industry prefers to frame them) are anywhere in “the package” that composes a Competent person. So while I’ve known some truly phenomenal martial artists, their almost superhuman competence “on the mat” (or even, some of them, in real combat) doesn’t help me with this topic. I know at least dozens of exemplary martial artists, and have innumerable friends from this part of my life. As in every other section, I have to pick and choose. Which can be challenging. But I’ve cherry-picked a small number of folks who can give you examples of these competence traits.

While I’m writing in essentially timeline order, my main goal here is not biographical. So to get at the essence of Competence, I’m telling you about people in the order that makes sense for this purpose. While my Martial Arts journey started long before I met this person, she is one of my best examples, and it makes the most sense to start with Clare.

Clare became my partner in the art we both devoted many years to studying. There’s a term “Buyu” that means on the surface “martial friend.” It’s often used superficially to mean any person you train with. That is, I understand (I am not Japanese) not an intended use of the term. It’s meant to reflect a deeper sense of someone who would fight at your side through anything. I believe Clare is the person about whom I could properly use the term.

Many years ago, Clare and I adopted a nickname we use for each other that is akin to “co-conspirator.” For the fifteen years we trained together regularly we tested together for every belt through our first degree black-belts. We were also partners in every other thing relating to training, and many things not at all relating to training, and that continues today.

When events needed to be organized at the school, we organized them. Large and small, social events, seminars, marketing, team-building, baby showers, wedding-celebrations, birthdays...we did it all. We also both have a taste for a good practical joke. Fake severed arm hanging from the ceiling? They knew it was us. Fake nightclub in the (very small) women’s changing room (complete with lights and smoke effects)? We produced it. Training buddy at his black-belt presentation getting one with his nickname on it rather than his real name? Guilty. Friends wanting to shoot fireballs from their hands at a demo? We’re on it.

Our black-belt demonstration still holds the school record for the longest duration, biggest cast of attackers, most props, and of course we had a narrator. It holds those records because most of that is banned for future tests.

Anything that needed to be done big and well, we took both pride and joy in it. Clare and I have complementary skills, which made possible all of our accomplishments. When you think of Competent people, you think of ones who can put together people with needed skills, but you also think about people who can just manifest needed skills. I’ve known Clare for going on twenty years now, and I still get occasional surprises of “you did that?!” when she mentions some skill or experience she’s had.

Clare is a renaissance woman. She has traveled extensively, studied widely, read voraciously, and retained so many things that it makes the mere mortals around her feel we’ve been seriously wasting our lives. Clare is both the most humble person I know, always fearing she’s offended or misstepped, and also the person I know who is literally least-likely to mis-step.  She might say that her experience of failures keeps her ego in check. But alleged failures were mostly before I knew her.

Among her vast accomplishments, Clare was for many years a ballroom dance instructor.  When in an early class together, one of our instructors (male) made an offhand comment about how stupid it is that women wear high heels because it makes them vulnerable. “You can’t run in them.” Clare begged, politely but firmly, to differ.

Clare on an off-day could have come from the cover of a fashion magazine, if such publications had anywhere near her degree of taste. She has an array of stylish boots with heels that make my feet hurt just looking at them.

In her brilliantly humble-yet-determined way, a near-white belt speaking to a senior instructor with deference and respect, she suggested that she could run, fight, and do any other needful thing in heels. And then she proved it. She ran flat-out for a block, she demonstrated the techniques we were learning, she did it with no sign of awkwardness or discomfort of any kind. If you are ever in a fight with Clare, expect a stiletto (heel) in many places you do not want one. The instructor had to acknowledge that maybe movies aren’t the best way to judge women’s fighting attire.

Clare is another person who could illustrate any number of Competence traits, though she would tell you she illustrates none of them. I’ve chosen two for this article. One trait is in the Competence package. The other one is a thing that appears too often in these special people. If you’re a manager or friend of such a person, it’s something worth tending.

I think Clare’s defining trait is what I will refer to as “grace.” In a sense, I’d say it’s akin to a religious notion of Grace. But in the context we’re discussing, it’s all about Competence. Competent people have, and share, grace.

When things go wrong, at any scale, we’ve been told (Mr. Rogers quote) to “look for the helpers.” Clare is one of those. Clare helps. Helping is one manifestation of Grace. But I’d like to focus with pinpoint accuracy on a specific part of helping.

You know how sometimes people help, but they help in their own way rather than a really helpful way? Or sometimes people help, but make you feel stupid or wrong or less-than for needing the help? Like when you screw something up, and a friend will not let you forget it even while they clean up your mess? Or sometimes there are strings attached. Or someone may really mean to help but they also want to be seen to help. Or they need you to keep thanking them forever. We’ve all seen helping with “edges” like that.

Those ways are exactly not how Clare helps.

Clare’s defining form of Grace is accepting people right where they are when they are in need. Clare does exactly what’s asked, or if not asked she will figure out with this deep empathy and intuition what would be truly helpful, and she just does the thing.

Clare’s help is never intrusive. If she even suspects that it might be she disappears with supreme ninja skill. Many people Clare helps never know she’s done it, some never know they’ve been “helped” at all. But their lives are better, smoother, some obstacle has evaporated.

That subtlety might mean only dribbles of help, but Clare never underdoes it either. She never leaves someone wanting if they are in pain or need. I’ll give a recent personal example. After some recent surgery I was forbidden from real exercise, exhausted, and occasionally hurting. Clare came to sit with me for many hours. She anticipated when I might try to lift something and would intervene in an unobtrusive way. Only because I know her ways did I know she was helping. What she projected was gratitude for the “opportunity” to spend time with (tired, cranky) me.

Even when I did ask for things, I didn’t feel like a burden. Knowing Clare as I do, I know that when she says “I could stop to pick something up for you” she hopes for the opportunity and takes joy in providing the specific thing wanted. Having Clare means the kind of shared joy of freely-offered help that is gratefully accepted. That is a rare gift.

As with those “off” versions of “help,” any nuance wrong can make help into something else. Too often something unpleasant. Clare threads that needle so accurately, precisely, and consistently, that her friends and acquaintances are known to speculate that she’s got something a little more than human going on.

In the many years I’ve known Clare, I’ve been privy to her subtle “being there.” She’s been there for people at the lowest points in their lives. Times when folks have screwed things up so badly that it’s reasonable to worry how desperate they might be. Clare takes her many Competence skills involving trust to create the ability to be there for people who shut out everyone in their pain.

Clare is welcomed where no one else might be. She is the soul of discretion. Her actual work is in compliance for medical research, so she’s got a better handle on privacy than almost anyone. Clare also has a phenomenal amount of knowledge. Where many of us have superficial knowledge of many things, Clare routinely will crop up with “yes, I was just talking to so-and-so who wrote a book on that topic.” Or “I was just watching an interview where they discussed this.” Or “there was a fascinating documentary on exactly that.” She brings all of that to her helping.

Again, done wrong we would suspect “mansplaining” or “well actually.” But a skilled, Competent person can bring their knowledge to bear in a delicate and precise way to make things smoother. In a world where people shout their opinions, and expertise is derided, a quiet, welcomed, trusted voice of calm reason is a balm we all need.

Consider how that sort of Competence can operate, picture it in a workplace:

I’ve made a mistake, possibly a bad one. I’m embarrassed, overstretched, I don’t know how to fix it or resolve the situation, maybe I’m worried about consequences for me and others. Many people in those straits will dig the hole deeper, not let in help, and just keep sliding down the slope. With a Clare, there’s a firm, solid presence holding a rope to help climb back up. If I’ve screwed up, I’m going to grab that rope because I trust the help offered, I can expect no judgment, only help. If I know what’s needed I can ask and she will provide it with precise attention to instructions. If I’m adrift, she will apply her formidable knowledge, skills, network of resources, and determination to figuring out what will help and manifesting it. Clare gives advice when it’s wanted, and the advice is good. When it is not wanted, she doesn’t inflict it. She has integrity that people sense and want to do what is right because she sets that example, not because she offers judgment.

When I talk about Competence in the workplace, this is the skill that detects hidden obstacles to projects. So often people make mistakes and try to cover them or fruitlessly try to fix them alone and instead create a big mess. With a smart, insightful, trusted resource at hand, that is less likely to happen. A mess can come to light when it is small and salvageable. Mistakes can be rectified. Without that grace in the room, people feel alone with their missteps and failings.

Clare has a mindset that contributes to this ability. That when one has had failures it is important to not let passing things cause bitterness. Competent people learn from failure, error, and pain. And eventually they dust themselves off and keep going. There is a notion of that in our martial training “nana korobi, ya oki.” “Fall down seven times, get up eight.” When one has had failure and gotten up, a certain sort of person will grow the capacity for grace, of not judging others who are in failure. And likewise, when helped (or maybe not helped when help was wanted), will grow their grace in a feeling of service to others. This is why I say that this sense of grace is akin to the religious. Many religions try to teach it. I consider some measure of grace to be an essential component of the Competence this series describes.

On the flip side, the other thing Clare exemplifies that is useful to us here, a too-common trait in the Competent, is the willingness to make others comfortable by hiding their own light.

You can’t make someone feel grateful for knowledge if you come across as an arrogant know-it-all. You can’t make someone trust you and reveal their shame, weakness, and need if you appear to be a flawless and blameless beacon of light who couldn’t understand.

Like the way, I think, that leaders sometimes “believe their own press” and become monsters of ego...the reverse seems to happen with the truly Competent. They believe the self-minimizing humility they exude. The laughing-at-own-expense. The sharing of previous mistakes, flaws, weaknesses that help others recognize empathy.

Those communication tools make Competent folks effective. And Competent people are truthful. Clare is the soul of integrity. This trap can leave them focused so much on their own failings to the benefit of others, that sometimes, despite all evidence to the contrary, they just don’t believe in their own wonderfulness.

A Catch-22 perhaps? If they acknowledged their own skill, grace, and power then they might become worse at helping. The humbleness is natural, often they are a bit perfectionist, so it’s never hard to remember their failures. It’s easy.

Those who might be in a position to support them have a conundrum. You can’t just TELL such a person that they are good. They will be skilled at evading such obvious traps, and far too smart to believe you. They are incredibly aware of their own flaws and ready to tell you all about them. It helps you to know they are flawed, so they won’t be willing to hear that they are not.

I don’t actually have much to offer on this score. Convincing a Competent person of their own worth when they don’t already know it might take someone even more Competent to do it. The best I’ve been able to do with my dear friend is to share transparently truthful gratitude, my own and that of others she’s helped. Fair reward for effort. No one should think their work has been wasted, and least of all someone who does this unpaid labor we all need. If you have other suggestions, please add them to the comments.

In Clare’s case, those who know her well can see her for what she is: a woman of impressive depth, maturity, capability, and Competence. One who slips in unnoticed to do little things that have weighty impact for the good. A candle of grace in a dark world. A candle in stilettos, with an iron spine, and (metaphorical and literal) fists in the most tasteful of velvet gloves. If you know someone Competent, I expect their own grace has been felt as well.