Why I hate Facebook
Published: Wed, 05/16/18
I hate Facebook. Years ago when I joined Facebook a friend warned me that it would eat up my life. I don’t think it has really done that because I am just not that interested in most of what happens there. I have also made sure that FB notifications do not come through to my Blackberry.
I originally joined (10 years ago?) because it was suggested to me that Facebook would be a good way of promoting Stav. It has been of some benefit for that purpose but I also know quite a few people who have resolutely refused to join Mark Zukerberg’s empire and they really do not seem to be any the worse for it. I am now being prompted to update certain details so that FB is compliant with current data protection regulations. (This isn’t just affecting FB, as you will probably have noticed.) I am tempted to do nothing and just see if I get chucked out and then I can just see how I get on without it. In one sense that would be a shame as I do have a list of 220 people on my Ice and Fire Stav group which has grown quite dramatically in the past few months (from about 120). For that reason I probably won’t close my FB account, so don’t worry if that is how you got to read this post.
What has prompted my jaundiced view of social media this is comments posted in response to my attempts to promote Allen Reed’s talk and participation in the HEMA Diversity Camp in early June. While Allen is here for the HDC I decided that it would be a nice idea if Allen could give a talk on the Thursday about his life and Service as a Deputy US Marshal. At the HDC itself Allen will be teaching seminars on hawk and knife and law enforcement skills. The talk will be very interesting and it seemed like a nice primer for the camp itself. However, I posted the link on a couple of HEMA FB groups which I am on and I got comments along the lines of; ‘what has this got to do with HEMA?’. I thought that the answer was pretty obvious, Allen is teaching at a HEMA event, this talk is associated with the event, albeit indirectly, so surely it is obvious? Or maybe not, judging by some of the responses. To be fair it is a reasonable question
since there is a ‘purist’ approach to Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) which says that to be HEMA the activity must be based on historical manuals and everything has to be worked out from those sources. If there is any lineage of teaching and practice then it can’t be HEMA. It isn’t up to me to criticise anyone else’s choices, although I do wonder when HEMA enthusiasts like to say that the old European systems; ‘ are the equal or better than any modern system’. You can claim what you like when there is no one around to tell you whether or not you are doing it right. We also have no idea how good the manuals really are, the best exponents and teachers were probably too busy teaching and using their arts to write it down and draw pretty pictures. Imagine a situation in 300 years time when martial arts training is based entirely on watching Enter the Dragon, the Karate Kid and few episodes of ‘Walker Texas Ranger’. Come to
think of it, that may not be far off the mark now for a lot of martial arts.
So what will the the HEMA Diversity Camp be like? The clue is in the name, a diverse range of sources and thus teaching. Milo Thurston, reconstruction from fencing and pugilism manuals. Fox Walters, reconstructed long sword training from various sources and Commando dagger from the manual and working with actual WW2 veterans. Me, Stav principles taught through staff work and knife defence. Allen, hawk and knife, drawing from rather sketchy sources, but then working from first principles of edged weapon use. Then Law enforcement skills drawn from a quarter century of being a Deputy US Marshal. Historical? Perhaps not all of it yet, but everything becomes historical in its own good time and that is when the next generation wishes that the previous one had paid more attention to what was going on around them.
So, HDC, exploring a diverse concept of what is historical, after all history is happening all the time and perhaps now is the best time to catch it.
If you are within reach of Beverley on the 7th of June it will be a good evening, details here http://www.hdc.stavcamp.org/reedtalk.html Even better, come to the whole event, I still have a couple of places left.
Regards
Graham
PS I have also finally got properly started with the second distance learning programme. The second programme will focus on self-protection and building up a very simple, but effective, practice of exercises and drills for self-defence. The first module, going out this week analyses the three kinds of violence and how to recognise them. (If you can recognise something you have a better chance of avoiding it.) If you would like to be part of the trial then please see https://iceandfire.org.uk/martial01.html