What would a Viking martial art be like?
Published: Wed, 08/12/15
Fightcamp lived up to expectations again this year. It always is an interesting and stimulating environment in which to spend three days. Plenty of interesting people to catch up with or meet for the first time. Training sessions with really good and experienced teachers and usually good people to practice with. Amazing stuff going on to just watch even if one is not participating at that moment.
High points this year. All the sessions I participated in were really good but special mention goes to Alan Reed’s Bowie knife workshop which will be transferable to sax training. Phil ‘Fox’s’ Commando dagger seminar which reflected a high degree of research (including taking instruction from actual veterans) and seemed to be extremely practical. Then Sunday morning was Pedrag Nikolic’s German wrestling workshop. Okay, I am too old for wrestling really but somehow Pedgrag makes his sessions fun, safe and yet very informative, so well worth doing.
My session on cudgel/walking stick seemed to go down well too. About sixteen people attended and we began with the nine basic strikes and thrusts, went on through a simple drill to work with combining action, intention and movement. Developed this into intercepting attacks from other directions and finished off with a few people masking up and attacking with training knives so that we could practice slightly realistic defence with a walking stick against a knife attack. I say ‘slightly realistic’ because the presence of protective equipment means that the attacker can take a lot more punishment than an unprotected person could. But it is still fun and informative.
I think next year I will offer to do Stav dagger/tein training for close quarter combat and self-defence. I have been careful about doing this session before because I got most of the ideas for dagger training from sessions at Fightcamp over the years. No one is likely to notice and if they do it doesn’t really matter, there are very few genuinely original ideas. What counts is what you have done with an idea, not where it originally came from.
I have taken to explaining that Stav is a Viking martial art in that we travel around, find good ideas and steal them to bring home and use ourselves. Actually we are always ready to trade what we have to offer. Some times that is accepted, sometimes it isn’t. Either way, when I see a good idea or way of training I am perfectly happy to steal it for myself and so that I can share it with anyone I teach or train with. (I always try and give credit to the person or system I stole an idea from. But maybe that is just a way of showing off my trophies.) Of course there is no point in just stealing stuff randomly and then accumulating loot you can never actually use or trade. What Stav training has given me is the ability to see what is of value, understand what I am seeing and then adapt the idea or method into my own practice and teaching. Then the developed concept or training technique can be traded for further knowledge and
ideas. Very much the way of the Viking I think.
If you were not at Stav camp in July but you would still like to know what you missed then the three disc set is available to purchase. There is well over three hours of material. Ivar showing stances, silent and galdre. Ivar training with weapons and unarmed. Ivar talking about how the Hafskjolds understand Norse mythology and cosmology (very different from modern Heathens). Another talk on understanding the runes which then goes on to be a general exposition on Ivar’s philosophy of life. From me there is a talk on AIM (combining action, intention and movement), staff exercises, stances and working with the cudgel.
Cost will be £45 including postage and packing. Please order from http://www.stavcamp.org Paid up Ice and Fire members can order at a discount from http://www.members.iceandfire.org.uk/video.html
regards
Graham
PS. Please view the promo video from the camp whether you want to buy the DVDs or not. Jordan Brocks recorded most of the video and did the editing. I will be further collaborating with Jordan to make some training videos for the various weapons and CQC training. You can see the promo video for Stav Camp at http://www.stavcamp.org You can see the longer one he made for us at http://www.somersetstav.co.uk