On being a student rather than a teacher
Published: Fri, 10/04/19
Since moving back to East Yorkshire two years ago I have not been terribly successful in teaching Stav as a martial discipline. I did manage to get a few people interested initially but it proved very difficult to maintain regular training and I have not been holding classes for several months now. I have not done much better with Saturday seminars either. I have been training at other people’s classes though and this has been useful in terms of keeping me active and getting a reminder of how other styles work. As I have recounted before, on the first evening I was resident in Beverley I went for a walk along the river bank and I got talking to the teacher of the local Chinese Arts club. This group practices the same style that I learned in North London over forty years ago and it was interesting to go back to it after so long. I have also been training over at York with the YSD (York School of Defence) particularly Lauren
Ireland’s Victorian and Edwardian Antagonistics class, which includes Bartitsu but draws from various other contemporary sources. So, what am I learning which is useful? Training is good, I like martial arts and it has been fun getting to know other people with similar interests. It has also confirmed that the Stav practice I have been using for the past twenty plus years provides a very effective foundation for both unarmed and weapon training in a variety of contexts. This has been further confirmed by attendance at various seminars such as Fightcamp and the YSD Easter event. Of course engaging in a variety of training environments as a student rather than as an instructor means that weaknesses in my practice may be revealed in various ways. This is good since there is always room for improvement and if you only teach you may never become aware of your own weaknesses, until it is too late of course.
The real benefit for me has been realising that there are a lot of people out there who are very good at technique and may be highly conditioned physically but seem to have little or no concept of principle. This should be no great surprise I guess. When I started in Stav Ivar always said that principles were more important than techniques. On the other hand, to learn principles it is necessary to have an appropriate context in which to train and practice since principles cannot really be grasped from a vacuum. So, we developed training methods which enabled the principles to be taught and practiced and I have done my best to continue this approach over the years. When working with other people and training quite deeply in other styles it also becomes apparent that once you genuinely understand principles it is possible to train in pretty much any context and still develop one’s understanding of essential martial principles. I
would draw a line at practising for competitions though. The rules of competition require the rejection of techniques that actually work and certainly limit the options available. Boxing, for example, may be reasonably effective in developing the principles of striking with the fist (albeit with a gloved hand) but forbids combining striking with grappling and kicking. This means training to limit your available reflexes and thus restricting your intuitive responses. Not a good thing if you hope that your martial skills are going to serve you in a real self-defence situation.
What I have realised is that there are two key principles which all practitioners of martial arts would benefit from being aware of.
Firstly, it is not really what you practice that matters, but what you learn on a fundamental level through your practice. No technique ever works in reality unless exactly the right context occurs. In training situations you can create the context and then the technique will work. In combat your antagonist may not be so cooperative in which case it is adaptable application of principles which may save your life. Guided Chaos is a training system which seems to grasp this concept and this quote is from Ari Kandel, a Guided Chaos Fourth Degree instructor who writes: ‘It is the teacher’s job to create situations that empower the student’s subconscious to better feel and apply the principles (balance, looseness, body unity, sensitivity).’
When we genuinely understand principles on an intuitive level then we can respond as we need to rather than in a fixed pattern imposed by a particular style. For some reason it seems quite difficult to go beyond just doing a technique and moving to a stage of learning from practising a technique. It seems to be even harder to communicate the importance of making the step from technique to principle. perhaps the real challenge is to work out how to make that communication to those who are ready to hear it.
Secondly, all martial arts comes down to a combination of Action, intention and movement, more on that soon.
Regards
Graham
PS On the 16th of November in Salisbury I will be teaching a day seminar when we will work with staff, axe and cudgel but I will also emphasise the principles inherent in the practice of these techniques. Full details at https://www.iceandfire.org.uk/salisbury161119.html
PPS If you are interested in seeing how Stav can work alongside other HEMA disciplines you might enjoy this Seminar in Beverley on the 2nd of November http://beverleystav.uk/hema02112019.html