Wanting to look like Farrah Fawcett-Majors
Published: Fri, 01/27/17
Many years ago I saw a cartoon where an elderly lady is sat in a hairdressing salon and showing the hairdresser a picture of Farrah Fawcett-Majors. (Farrah F- M was an actress in the popular 1970s TV series Charlie’s Angels. Her best feature was her hair. You can google her if you really have nothing better to do.) The caption was something like the hairdresser saying. “I will see what I can do Mrs Smith.” At the time it was both gently funny and rather poignant too.
There is a lesson there for every hair dresser. People don’t spend money on hair cuts because they will suffer and die if they don’t. They come to the salon and spend money because they want to be transformed into someone smart, beautiful, hansom or glamorous through the process of having the hairdo. Anyone offering anything, whether goods, services or opportunities, needs to remember this. What people want is, and are prepared to pay for, is transformation. There are sub divisions of transformation which I would describe as retention (avoidance of unwanted transformation) and compliance (transformation into someone eligible for certain privileges or status). We may not want to spend time and money on hair cuts. However, if we are going to retain a certain look then cutting the hair, perhaps dyeing it or even replacing it with a hair piece or wig, will be considered necessary. If you are in the services then compliance with
regulation hairstyles is just part of being under military discipline. The haircut is part of the transformation into soldier, sailor or airman.
When you think about anything you do you will realise that your motivation is transformation, whether for positive or negative reason. Passing a driving test transforms you into a driver. Buying your first car transforms you into a car owner. The freedom of the open road is now available to you.
However, each time your car insurance comes due you either pay the premium and retain your ability to drive legally. Or you transform into a non-driver (at least legally) until you have renewed your insurance and become compliant again.
I attend first aid courses on a regular basis. You might think that a person would like to transform themselves into someone who could deal with an emergency. In my experience people are only transformed into first aiders for reasons of compliance with health and safety regulations or insurance requirements.
I realise now that the problem with the Stav Centre was that I did not properly explain what the transformation might be if someone actually started training there. When Hadyn takes over in April he will be offering to transform unfit people into fit people. Or, more likely making, reasonably fit people very fit. I hope he succeeds.
Health, fitness and well-being may well be benefits of training in Stav. The transformation is harder to explain. Mainly because the real objective of learning Stav is to achieve a sufficient degree of self-reliance that you can transform yourself. Yes, we all need help and guidance from other people but if you are self-reliant you will seek out the right people and choose how you use what you learn from them. So, as a Stav teacher my intention is to offer enough knowledge and guidance to get people started on their journey but not make them dependent. That is what Ivar did for me.
Part of self reliance is being able to make things for yourself. If you want to express your practical and creative side then you might be interested in the full set of weapon making instructions. The set includes guidelines for getting started, the tools you will need etc. Instructions on marking out and then specific directions for making axe, staff, spear, cudgel, knife and tein/dagger. Getting this set won’t transform you into a craftsman, not immediately anyway, but if you are prepared to make the effort you could equip yourself with a nice set of training weapons. You could even make them for other people if you got to be good enough. See the page here if you are interested http://iceandfire.org.uk/weaponinstructions.html
regards
Graham
PS An eagle eyed reader noticed a mistake in yesterday’s post. The Techniques, methods and principles course in February is on the 25th, not the 5th as I wrote yesterday. Details are correct on the website unless I have missed something else http://www.somersetstav.co.uk/weaponseminars.html