I got a bang on the head!
Published: Sat, 01/12/13
I got a bang on the head on Wednesday evening. Attendance at the
Guided Chaos classes are picking up this month and there was quite
a good number there at the mid week class. So Mick, the
instructor, had us trying two against one with the two attackers
trying to take the defender to the floor and the defender warding
off the attackers. Venetia did it very well but when it came to my
turn I made the classic mistake of fixating on one attacker and
forgetting about the other, as a result I got pulled down rather
hard and wasn't able to break-fall properly. So the back of my
head hit the mat rather hard and I was momentarily stunned. Thank
goodness for 40mm of foam mat or I would certainly have had
concussion or worse. I am glad to say I didn't seem to suffer
any serious ill effects from the incident.
When Venetia and I recounted the incident to my sister and brother
in law when we had supper with them the reaction was a predictable
one along the lines of; "Well if you will do such dangerous
things what do you expect?" But my brother in law is a keen
cyclist who was knocked off a couple of years ago and broke his
collar bone. I am glad to say that he made a full recovery and is
still keen on two wheeled muscle powered machines.
This morning in the paper there was a front page report on the
Jimmy Saville scandal saying how the police could have brought a
successful prosecution if they had tried harder. I just feel very
sad about the whole episode rather than angry and outraged. Okay,
Jimmy Saville should not have behaved the way he did and the BBC
and the other various organisations that he was associated with
should have supervised him much more closely. I personally was
never a particular fan but I do remember enjoying Jim will fix it
back in the day and somehow Jim always managed to brighten things
up with his eccentric ways of raising money for various charities.
If someone could go back in time and warn the BBC not to employ him
as a presenter then it might have prevented him becoming a
celebrity but I can't help thinking that the nation would have
been a slightly duller place. When he died only 15 months ago all
kinds of praise was heaped on Jimmy Saville which recognised his
genuine achievements. So at a time like this, rather than getting
into a state of high moral indignation at how the nation was
completely hoodwinked by some terrible force of evil, it is better
to remember that there is good and bad in everyone. If only
perfect people are allowed to have any kind of status in our world
then it is going to become a very boring place.
The problem arises when we get fixated on what we perceive to be
the good in a situation or person and turn a blind eye to the not
so positive aspects. It is when we are willing to see both as
clearly as each other that we can really get the most out of life
and allow people to make a genuine contribution but not be abused
or exploited by them.
So am I going to train again today at the Saturday Guided Chaos
class today? Absolutely, I am there to learn, and that includes
learning by my mistakes. And, yes I might take another fall, but
that is what the mat is there for.
Next Stav training session is going to be in Salisbury on the 26th
of January, more details at http://www.iceandfire.org.uk/train.html
as well as all the Stav basics and principles I will share a bit of
what I have been learning from the Guided Chaos, it is very
interesting and fits well with Stav, it brings a sort of Seid
element into training. Book at
http://www.iceandfire.org.uk/forthcoming.html