Falling out of the canoe
Published: Thu, 11/14/13
When I was in the Venture Scouts many years ago one of our leaders
got his Canoe instructor certificate. After this canoing became a
regular activity for our group. We built our own canoes out of
fibreglass (you could hire the moulds and make your own.) Did
canoe expeditions and had regular training sessions on a reservoir
not far away in Hertfordshire. The only problem for me was that I
don't have a great sense of innate balance and nearly every
training session I would manage to capsise my craft at some point.
I wasn't the only one who did it, but it usually seemed to be
me. I would find myself getting worried that the canoe would turn
over and then usually it did. It did get rather embarrassing.
Then we had a Group Summer Camp and we took the canoes with us.
For part of the event we were camped by a river and the weather was
quite hot. So I borrowed one of the canoes and spent a couple of
hours intentionally sinking it. I would lean it over to one side
until the water came in and control that position and then empty
the craft and try again on the other side. After that session I
never fell out of a canoe again and even today I could probably
still handle one safely.
Martial arts training is rather like that but for dealing with
conflict situations rather than watery challenges. If you have no
idea what it would be like to be manhandled by a violent person
they the prospect can be very frightening. If it did happen then
your mind is likely to overreact and your body go into fear mode,
both of which can make the situation much worse than it needed to
be. Through training you are at least aware of what it is like to
manage attacking and defending albeit in a controlled and safe way.
Okay, a really violent situation is much more frightening than
anything you should encounter in training but you will still be a
lot better off than with no preparation at all. Also, martial arts
training isn't directly about violence at all, it is about
gaining confidence in yourself, exploring your own potential and
working on a deep level with other people committed to the same
goal. In Martial Arts training you will fail a lot before you get
to be any good. But that is okay because you will also gain
confidence that you can handle anything that does come your way.
Just as by sinking the canoe in a controlled way I realised that I
didn't need to be afraid of the water any more.
As always, best to try it for yourself. So training this Saturday
in Evesham http://www.iceandfire.org.uk/train.html
regards
Graham
PS Creating the Stav Training Centre will enable me to go into much
more depth with a greater number of students. Less than a month
before we know about the planning permission. Check it out at
http://www.somersetstav.co.uk/sc.html if you haven't done so
already.