Well, taking on the goblins seemed like a good idea at the time

Published: Tue, 10/29/19

It was the second session of the Rune Gathering in Surrey at the beginning of October and I was introducing the cudgel or walking stick for training AIM, (action, intention and movement). Each intention relates to one of the five principles although the Karl, Herse and Jarl are the most relevant to cudgel training. I had about fourteen to sixteen people involved and they seemed to be getting the hang of the drills quite nicely. We were training behind the barn in a long and narrow woodland clearing. I looked at the barn door and decided that this was a chance to try out an idea.

The task of a Stav martial arts teacher is to communicate the five strategic principles to those who train in Stav. This is not easy. It is not so hard to teach tactical skills which may be of service to a strategic principle, but tactics and strategy are different things. Also, there is no definitive solution to the problem of making combat training realistic. If there is no real threat of death or injury then there is no real experience of combat. So, as a teacher how do I communicate advanced martial concepts without students getting hurt or confusing the training drill with the concept? I still have not fully worked this out and probably never will, but it does not stop me trying.

In my experience the hardest principle to teach and practice is the Jarl. There are various reasons for this, some of which will be to do with my personality. However, it is still difficult to teach a principle based on ignoring a threat in order to focus on something more important. A few weeks ago I had an idea for exploring the Jarl principle which needed the right opportunity to try it out. Then, there I was in the woods surrounded by willing and enthusiastic guinea pigs.

My idea? Stay with me, it gets a bit weird.

I called everyone together, told them that I wanted to try something and that I would be very grateful for their cooperation.

First I had to explain the scenario. Two volunteers were found and I placed one in the doorway of the barn. ‘You.’ I told the first one. ‘Are under a spell and are about to be lost for ever into fairyland. The only thing that is keeping you in this world is the gaze of your friend.’ (the other volunteer who I placed 15 or 20 yards back) ‘And if they can get close enough to touch you with their stick you will be released from the spell. But, if they take their eyes of you you are lost for ever into fairy land.’ Everyone else was to be an evil goblin whose job it was to block and distract the rescuer on their mission. Maybe it did make more sense in the woods than it does describing it now.

We gave it a go and most people had two or three goes at being the rescuer. I have to admit that I imagined the rescuer dancing elegantly between the ‘goblins’ using well coordinated footwork and stick work. In fact it quickly degenerated into a game of British Bulldog, just like we used to play in the Scouts nearly half a century ago. However, there was good humored enthusiasm, a lot of hilarity, and some people even realised that if you focus on very specific goal and refuse to be distracted by anything around you then you have a much greater chance of reaching your target than if you engage with the distractions. It was also clear that the bigger and stronger you were the more chance you had of pushing through, yes size does matter.

Will I try it again? Probably worth a go at the Rune Retreat next mid-summer although the rules and objectives need fine tuning a bit.

The moral of this post? I have some odd ideas sometimes and, if you take the risk of training with me, you might just be a guinea pig in one of my experiments. On the other hand, sophisticated concepts are difficult to convey and it is good to be adventurous in how we explore them, even to the point of being bundled into the mud in an autumn wood.

Winter is nearly on us now, so, lets look forward to Mid-summer next year. The Rune Retreat will take you somewhere you have never been before (and I don’t just mean Norfolk, or fairy land for that matter.) What we will do is get to know the runes in a practical way and discover what you can do with them. Not all my ideas will work out quite like I hope they will, but that is okay we can still learn something. Details at http://rr.stavcamp.org/

regards

Graham

PS In the meantime, two more martial seminars this year, we won’t have the space or numbers to fight goblins but there will be plenty of other things to work with.

Salisbury 16th November 2019 https://www.iceandfire.org.uk/salisbury161119.html

Beverley 7th December 2019 https://iceandfire.org.uk/train.html