Who said life should be easy?
Published: Thu, 10/02/14
Ever noticed how two tasks which could be categorised as
essentially the same can be very different experiences when you
come to undertake them? Two problems at the Stav centre we had to
overcome, one was new worktop for the kitchenette. I could have
bought a length of standard mdf worktop but it isn't that
cheap and it tends to be sold in lengths three times longer than we
needed. So I got some offcuts of beechwood from a local
woodworking supplier and pegged and glued pieces together to make
exactly the tops we needed. A little bit of filler, some fairly
easy sanding and they are already looking rather nice, some Danish
oil on them today and job done. If you know what you are doing
then sanding beechwood is always a pleasure because it quickly
creates a beautiful appearance and delightful texture.
However we also have the floor, which also needs transforming
through abrasive activity. We have inherited a serviceable floor
covering over most of the floor area. It it some kind of very hard
wearing carpet which is fine for the kind of training we do. It
hasn't been very well treated in places but it will do for the
time being. However there were sections around two sides where it
had been cut away in a very untidy fashion leaving the adhesive on
the floor. I have cut away more to make a neat walkway along the
north west side from the door to the back of the room. The idea is
to paint the concrete floor in the none training area with none
slip floor paint, a perfectly sensible and economical plan. The fun
bit is preparing the floor, some really lumpy bits could be cut off
little bit by little bit with a sharpened bolster and a club
hammer. A tungsten scraper shifted a tiny bit. Venetia and I know
about scraping and preparing surfaces, I can scrape the paint off a
whole sash window section in less than an hour. But getting the
old adhesive off the concrete floor? Angle grinding seemed to be
the only way to go and I have a really good abrasive disc, which
did a great job for the first couple of square feet and then
clogged up, after that it kind of smeared the old rubber glue over
the concrete, like an action man sized car had been spinning his
wheels and laying down rubber on our floor (smelt about the same
too). This morning I will have a go at finishing the job with some
new abrasive discs, I will get there since we need to get the dusty
work out of the way so we can do the final painting of the walls.
But whatever it takes it won't be fun. Noisy, hard work,
smelly, horribly dusty and anything but fun. But if we want a nice
looking painted floor it has to be done.
Teaching Stav is a bit like that, a lot of the time learning a
practice like Stav can be like sanding beech wood, takes some
effort but not too much and very pleasant results come quite
quickly. But sometimes its harder, injuries (in Stav usually
caused elsewhere, but not always) make training painful, we get
tired and training seems like a huge effort (although once in class
people usually find the actual training is energising rather than
exhausting, but they have to get there to find out) and life just
gets in the way with other commitments and distractions. Sometimes
people hit personal barriers in terms of resistance to change. But
whoever said life would always be easy?
I am not sure exactly where we will be in terms of finishing the
Stav Centre by Saturday the 11th of October but if you want to
train for a day then we will definitely have the place clean and
tidy and ready to welcome you. Details at
http://www.iceandfire.org.uk/forthcoming.html
regards
Graham