I survived the last camp of the season
Published: Mon, 09/03/12
Made it back from Mercian Gathering early afternoon. Have had a
great time at three camps in the last month, Druid, Fightcamp and
Mercian just gone. Each one very different in its own way, but
what would be the point if they were all the same? I had a bit of
a job getting home, the alternator on my van started overcharging
and boiled the battery dry between Coventry and Oxford. So I
stayed with friends in Oxford last night, jump started the van this
morning and managed to make home in one go (with no chance of
restarting it if I stalled it). Managed to scavenge a regulator
off a scrap van and borrowed a battery and I am back on the road
again so it could have been worse.
The camp? Taught two morning Stav sessions which started with
about 10 people and then more would drift in over the hour it ran
for. I concentrated on unarmed stuff but but everyone who took
part seemed to enjoy themselves so well done everyone who managed
to get up and be there. I did my talk on Pareto's law (80/20
principle) on the Saturday afternoon and the marquee was pretty
much full. I did my best to explain the principle but I wasn't
quite sure what had been made of it. But over the rest of the
weekend I had quite a number of people come up to me and say how
helpful they had found it. One lady said that she had tried to
explain my talk to her friends after a few drinks in the evening
but my example of the Russians attacking western Europe apparently
just caused confusion, but I am flattered that she tried.
It was great catching up with old friends and acquaintances and
making new ones and giving people a chance for a hands on
experience of Stav training. Anyway, that is the last camp for
this year so the next thing is the day course in Denham on the 15th
of September. I will work with the stances in some detail, do
weapon training at a level appropriate to each student (I will have
help teaching so there will be staff training for beginners and axe
for more advanced students). We will spend some time on close
quarter training too, using the nine exercises and I have some
rather cool new techniques for dagger and sax.
http://www.iceandfire.org.uk/train.html I am also putting the
programme together for next year so if you would like to host a
course for me to teach let me know and I will see what I can do.