Nine questions I have to answer, part 1
Published: Wed, 02/04/15
Following on from my contact with MACE (Martial Arts and Combat Exhibition in Bristol in June which I will be teaching at) I have been asked to get involved with MA Unity which will mean online exposure through a kind of web based magazine of short videos featuring different MAs and Stav can be one of them. To start the process Dan Holloway, who is also one of the MACE organisers, has sent me a questionnaire with nine questions for me to answer. I am going to use these as a basis for some postings because they will make me think and hopefully the answers will be interesting to people involved in Stav. I might also get some feedback on some of the answers before I send them back to Dan.
The first question is: Can you give a brief history of your MA/system?
Answer: Not that easy with Stav since the story goes from myth, to legend, to history to the present day. Mythologically Stav originates with the Lay of Rig and the Earls of Moore seeing themselves as descendent of Heimdal. Ledgend is that around 1500years ago Earling, an illegitimate son of the Earls of Moore left the family, crossed the mountains and settled in Dremensfjiord where he dedicated a hill fort to Hos (Odin) who it was believed was his family. The Hoskoller, later the Hafskjolds lived there ever since and developed an education system based on the runes which included martial skills (they were warlords after all). The more recent history is that the traditional form of education was rapidly being lost during the 20th century as the Hafskjolds tended to disperse and to be as influenced by modern culture and education as anyone else. Ivar Hafskjold, my teacher went to Japan in the late 1970s and stayed until 1991 and
there learned Japanese martial arts to a very high level.
When Ivar settled in the UK in the early 90s he was willing to teach the family system, backed up with his experience and expertise from Japan to anyone who was seriously interested. Basically four of us were and in the mid 90s each of us trained with Ivar on a regular basis and developed our own take on how Stav worked for us. Since then we have gone our separate ways and sought to develop our training and practice in the way that is best for each of us. Ever since I have maintained contact with Ivar while teaching independently and developing a training system which I believe works as a modern martial art/self-development system while keeping true to the fundamental principles of Stav as passed down over the centuries.
I moved to Oxford in 1996 and to Somerset about 6 years ago. In each place I have taught as many people as have been seriously interested and taken the opportunity to develop a teaching system which teaches the runes and how to express the runes as stances. The use of the staff as both the foundation weapon and the most advanced training exercises. Several other weapons including the axe, spear and cudgel and unarmed self-defence training. In the past five years or so there has been input and exchange from involvement in events such as Fightcamp for HEMA training and attending training such as Geoff Thompson’s Master Class.
Stav is a very long and rich tradition and it is quite a responsibility to carry on a form of it into the 21st century. Of course what is taught as a contemporary martial art will be very different to the experience of growing up in Norway in the 19th century and imbibing a tradition with ones mothers milk so to speak. But I believe the essence of the tradition, its essential teachings and principles can be taught and used today so long as the original tradition is honoured.
The second question is: what are the main principles of your art? More on that tomorrow.
In the meantime I have had my first booking for Stav Camp in July, all the way from the USA too. The Stav camp is the opportunity to train with Ivar Hafskjold and discover first hand how Stav was taught and used in its traditional context. This is an incredibly valuable and rare opportunity, so I don’t quite know why the camp is not booked solid already, I guess I have not done enough reminding so here it is:
Go to http://www.stavcamp.org and if you want to come to the pre camp training there are only 5 places left for the July programme, over to you.
regards
Graham
PS I am building up the web pages for the auto responder sequence I am building, I posted the first one on the web yesterday here http://iceandfire.org/runes/w.html Fe is at http://iceandfire.org/runes/1.html, Ur http://iceandfire.org/runes/2.html, Thor http://iceandfire.org/runes/3.html