Burning the porridge
Published: Wed, 02/19/14
I burnt the porridge this morning. I know, it shouldn't have
happened but I got distracted. An engineer from our energy company
came to check the safety of the gas meter valve. Apparently there
has been a problem with people not being able to turn off their gas
because the valve has stuck. I know it happens with water valves
and apparently it happens with gas ones too. Ours was replaced
about a year back so no problem there but we had a quick chat with
the very pleasant man before he went off to his next appointment.
The porridge was on the stove and it burned. Making porridge
isn't exactly difficult and really the only thing you have get
right is the quantities and seeing when to take it off the stove.
Could not get much simpler but you do need to concentrate at the
right moment.
Stav training is a bit like that. All the 'moves' we use
are pretty simple. Our two person drills run to a maximum of four
or five steps, depending upon how you count it. So making each
drill work depends mainly on concentration, observation and timing.
On the Trel level it means observing when, where and in what
direction your attacker is moving and matching them to maintain the
distance.
On the Karl level it means taking yourself out of danger,
neutralising the attacker's weapon and stopping them from
moving any further forward. This response happens when the
attacker crosses a pre-determined threshold.
If it is a Herse response you need then it begins with presenting
so that an attack should obviously be a bad idea. If an attack
still comes in the attention is divided and the attacker freezes or
gets hit. If they move again they get taken down. Each stage is
about reading the situation and responding accordingly.
The Jarl is similar but it happens on an intuitive level.
The Konge depends upon focusing on the attacker's web and
taking full control of it.
In each case observation, concentration and timing is essential.
Oh, and not being distracted. A really determined attacker will
always try and make sure you are distracted in some way first and
then an assault of some kind may be over before you even realised
it was happening. But if you are really aware of what is going on
around you and how to observe what is actually significant then it
is much less likely that you will be caught out. This doesn't
mean situations which necessarily involve violence, hopefully that
will occur very rarely if ever to you. But people do try to take
advantage in various ways so being fully aware, observing their
behaviour and thus determining their intentions can save you from
getting into situations you could do without in your life.
So although highly structured training with archaic weapons may
seem irrelevant to 'real' self-defence requirements I would
contend that Stav training provides a vehicle for learning and
practicing in depth the skills that really matter for
self-protection. Observation, concentration and timing, when you
neglect these bad things happen, like burning the porridge.
regards
Graham
PS If you haven't yet seen it there is a short video at
http://iceandfire.org.uk/train.html showing a demonstration of the
five principles applied to knife defence. Above the video are
details of the next day course in Salisbury on the 8th of March.
Why not make the effort to come? I will go into the essentials of
Stav training in detail so you will see what is special about Stav
for yourself.