Making sawdust and shavings
Published: Wed, 10/29/14
I made a large pile of shavings yesterday and found myself left
with a new oak staff. Or to put it another way, I took a carefully
selected block of oak about 25mm by 25mm by about 1600mm long
(that's an inch squared by about 5 feet long if you prefer old
money) and kept shaving off the corners until I had created a
staff. Actually there is truth whichever way I put it. If you
select the wrong piece of wood there is no staff within it waiting
to be revealed, if the wood is not straight or the grain runs the
wrong way or there are shakes and knots in the wood you are not
going to create a usable staff. On the other hand it is necessary
to set out knowing what you intend to achieve otherwise a perfectly
good piece of Oak is going to become something else at best or just
be firewood at worst.
Teaching isn't so different, there is a certain amount of
imparting knowledge and leading the student in a particular
direction. But equally important is bringing out the innate
qualities and abilities within the person who is learning from you,
or perhaps I should say, studying with you. Also part of being a
teacher is recognising a person's potential and encouraging
them to recognise it for themselves.
When teaching self-defence it is particularly important to
encourage the student to develop their inherent reflexes and
responses rather than hope they can duplicate clever techniques
which are fun in a training setting but highly unlikely to be
successfully applied in a real situation.
Three opportunities to find out what I mean this November, this
coming Saturday in Crewerne, on the 15th in Salisbury and back in
Crewkerne on the 29th more details at
http://iceandfire.org.uk/train.html
regards
Graham
PS the details for this coming Saturday are only listed at
http://somersetstav.co.uk/courses.html