A comment overheard
Published: Mon, 11/04/13
Yesterday afternoon Venetia and I went to the shop, which (planning
permission permitting) will soon be our Stav centre to do some
training. We also recorded some video footage for the members area
on-line training. We have some nice footage of how to do all three
versions of the galdre for the Ur stance. Also how to use the
basic Fe staff exercise to develop focus and accuracy and how to
make your arm unbendable in the Fe stance. These will be appearing
on the members area over the next few weeks.
While we were there an elderly couple went past and the woman
noticed the planning application notice, you can see it here if you
haven't already http://www.screencast.com/t/AvjxRLEJLH
Apparently the notice was carefully perused and then Venetia heard
the woman say 'Brilliant.' I am not sure if the
opportunity to do martial arts will be a dream come true for her or
if she was simply pleased to see that something was going to happen
in what has become a bit of a local eyesore. Either way it was
nice to have a positive response. Just as it was nice that the
local paper noticed our planning application and wrote a nice
little feature on it, even if it was on page 9 of the Western
Gazette, I have had one person comment on it so far so some people
do read the local rag.
Okay, so the plan is to have a dedicated Stav Centre but how will
it work? The answer is that I will be serving several overlapping
groups of people.
Firstly there will be people who live locally enough to attend
weekly classes, there are a lot of people living within a half hour
traveling radius so classes could be well supported.
Then there are people who are willing to travel for day courses and
sometimes weekends. It isn't that far from London or even the
midlands so there will be regular opportunities for those who are
willing to commit a Saturday once a month if not more.
Then there are people all over the world who are interested in
Stav. I have members of Ice and Fire in Australia, Germany, the
USA, Canada and Chile as well as all over the UK. There are people
who read my messages on just about every continent. I will be
willing to run courses up to a week for people who want to learn
Stav but getting here is going to be a major investment in time,
effort and money. Okay you are only going to make a trip like that
once a year or even more infrequently, but in the meantime your
training and practice will be supported by the membership scheme
which will include study material, video and a members email group.
The fourth group who will benefit from the Stav Centre will be
people who attend the seminars with guest instructors. I already
have some very interesting contacts so I intend to also run an
exiting programme of one off seminars with the best teachers
available. More on that soon.
So that is the plan and it is gathering momentum. If you still
haven't seen what the building looks like at present then go to
http://www.somersetstav.co.uk/sc.html and have a look.
regards
Graham
PS Classes are continuing in Crewkerne, Monday evenings at the
Methodist Church hall http://www.somersetstav.co.uk./
And if you did want to join Ice and Fire then go to
http://www.iceandfire.org.uk/join.html