Rested and inspired
Published: Tue, 08/30/16
I got a response from one of my students yesterday saying thanks for the message (the one about plumbing) and that he had been missing my missives. Nice of him to say so and, if truth be told, I have been missing writing them. I am not quite sure why I dried up, just tired as much as anything else. When you get tired and don’t feel that you can stop and rest and recharge then the first thing that goes is creativity.
In the past month I have had three periods away which might not be considered restful by some people’s standards but seem to have worked for me. Druid camp at the beginning of August, Fightcamp a week later and this last weekend I had a few days at Superspirit at the same site as Druid camp was held. At Druid and Superspirit I woke up each morning to views like this http://oxfordstavclub.co.uk/images/camp01.jpg and like this http://oxfordstavclub.co.uk/images/camp02.jpg Okay, it is just a view of fields from a hill top down to the river Severn but it did it for me.
I tend to wake up when it is light so I am usually up when everyone else is still fast asleep. That is the time to make a cup of tea and think and write. This gave me the opportunity to do some planning and work out some ideas. One idea that came to me was a list of key things that make Stav training special, from those came some ideas for training opportunities over the next few months.
First thing on the list is that in Stav training we use generic weapons. We may define them as staff, axe, cudgel, tein/dagger and spear. But really they are just longer or shorter sticks. Ivar does pretty much all his training with a large walking stick. Having a defined range of training equipment looks good in the Stav centre, we have racks on the wall carrying training versions of all the weapons described above. This makes teaching easier and I know that training equipment is appropriate and safe for use in classes. What we are generally not doing is training to use specific technology which may or may not be available when you need it.
At Fightcamp I did a session with an Italian Teacher called Carlo Parisi. He always does very interesting classes and his ‘Renaissance Knife Fighting’ lesson was no exception. Except the title was a little bit misleading. The original context of the system of fighting that Carlo taught was Renaissance cities in Italy where all gentlemen knew how to use a sword but were not allowed to carry a full size one within the city itself. So people apparently carried daggers of the allowed length (about 18 inches I think) which were very much miniature swords in their own right complete with cross guards and hand protection. A more accurate title would have been ‘Renaissance Fighting in Built Up Areas With Very Small Swords’. So, certainly an interesting lesson there was little in the teaching that would work with just a short stick.
Stav was always meant to be an education system which teaches you to think about the situation you are actually in and how to see the opportunities that are actually around you. With Stav you don’t need access to specialised equipment to make you a warrior or soldier, or farmer, craftsman or priest for that matter. Your knowledge of the web, the runes, the principles and all that goes with them should be inside you and even if you found yourself washed up on a desert island or in a high security prison you will have all you need to survive an even flourish. I will tell you tomorrow about the ‘9th weapon of Stav’.
So, we are back to the staff, or stick, or pole, or stave as our primary training equipment. This Autumn I will be running a series three seminars in which we will explore the potential of training with a stick. See the details here http://somersetstav.co.uk/staff.html
regards Graham
PS If you would like to learn how Ivar uses the staff (and much more besides) then you are still welcome to book on the seminar with Ivar at the end of September http://stavcamp.org/index.html