I had the experince of being pushed around at school as a very small child and was advised to try 'fighting back'.
I found that this discouraged bullying and from then on was interested in how the use of, and fear of, force influenced human relationships. I remember being fascinated by the Kung Fu series with David Carradine which was first released when I was in my early teens. Co-inciding with this my school contracted a karate teacher to come into school to teach self defence to the girls during the day and to do an hour of Karete as an extra curricular activity after school. For some reason I was the only one interested after a couple of weeks so I got nearly a year of one to one instruction with George Mayo who founded a system called Kyshindo Karate. I was never much interested in competitive sports and much prefered the mind/body development which came with martial arts training as well as learning how to defend myself.
When the school ended the contract I trained instead at Sensi Mayo's club for a couple of years. Then I moved onto Kung Fu, later Shotokan Karete, a Tae Kwan do/kick boxing cross system and finally Nambudo for a couple of years. I was training in various martial arts for about 15 years before I discovered Stav. For the last year or so before I met Ivar I had been teaching a self defence method of my own devising based on everything I had learned before.
I discovered Stav through the article in Fighting Arts International magazine. But I think I was more interested in Ivar himself rather than the Stav system per se, it didn't really make much sense in the first instance, I was as much impressed by what Ivar had done in Japan. I just had a feeling that here was someone who could teach me something I didn't already know. I simply wanted him to be my teacher if he was willing to accept me as a student.
We had the feeling that we were doing something very original in that we were using the stances and the five principles as something unique to Ivar's family tradition. On the other hand we were working on them with a great deal of genuine expertise and skill. To really experience the lines and the principles you need a really good cut to work from. Ivar knew how to deliver such a cut with a boken and he taught us how to do the same thing. The five principles were expressed using the jo, which Ivar is also a master of. But the weapons we used were just tools with which to practice Stav and it gave me a great deal of confidence in Ivar to know that he really knew how to use these tools properly. We also did a lot of work on using the Stances for unarmed training. Again Japanese (and Chinese) expertise helped us to do this safely and effectively.
I can't recall us having any real problem distinguishing between the essentials of Stav (stances and principles) and Japanese learned skills in cutting and striking.
As far as I recall we did them as part of each training session and also used
them for martial practice so they stuck pretty quickly. I began studying the
runes at the same time so I had an 'aid-memoire' to refer to from the beginning.
I think I could do them straight off after a few weeks. It took quite a lot
longer to learn the Galder versions.
I do the stances every day as a minimum, preferably one set in the morning and the other in the evening. I usually use the Karl and Jarl galder once each week. Then most days I also try to do weapon training, which might be long sword, axe or staff. In each case it will be 50 or 100 of each cut/strike and then walk through the five basics with that weapon.
I am not sure that I really have a favourite weapon these days. Stav is not a technology driven system. One of the problems with a lot of so called European martial arts systems is that they have become technology fixated with particular weapons and methods of using them. Stav is about learning how to use the web through the stances and the five principles and can thus be applied to any weapon, or none.
I have had phases of favouring the staff, then the axe and then the long sword. The staff because that was what I was originally taught, then the axe because Ivar told me that it was the Karl weapon. Then the long sword just because it is fun to work with. Now I am probably back to the staff again. The important thing is to be able to work with the stances and the lines of the web and the weaons are just tools to achieve that awareness of the web. All the training you need to do can be done with a good sized walking staff. But it is fun to work with purpose made weapons so long as you don't get dependant on them.
They would have to learn the stances and all training at the beginning needs to reinforce that knowledge of the stances. So for complete beginners the approach can be Stance, then staff exercise based on stance, then self defence application of stance and then the next one. What we aim for is for the student to be able to do the stances and the staff exercises derived from the stances. This develops flexibility and co-ordination which will enable safe handling of a staff.
Next comes the five staff against staff basics which introduce the idea of working with a partner to explore the five principles of Stav. The next stage will be working with the axe and long sword using the cuts, guards and five basics with each weapon. Then onto the scramsax, cudgel, spear and advanced staff basics.
The important thing is for the student to be able to see the lines of the web and apply the five principles as mind sets. The weapons and the drills with them are just methods towards this. The progression is like a rather flat spiral, coming back to the same principles over and over again but with a slightly higher level of understanding each time. The job of the teacher is to teach the essentials and then guide the student to discover a greater and greater understanding for themselves.
That is very hard to say, the whole system can be shown in a couple of hours and one lifetime is too short to master it. But three to six months of regular training should get a dedicated student to the point where they have a reasonable understanding of what they are doing and can practice by themselves.
Delivering a really good attack is the hardest thing to do properly. A good defence is really just a matter of good timing and some self confidence. The military axiom that you need three times the forces to attack an objective than you do to defend it holds true at any level. Having said that, when you know how to attack you can look at an opponent and know that either you are going to take them, or know that you won't. What is important is learning how to see the line, once you can do that it makes no difference whether you are attacking or defending.
There are two answers to this, one is that the martial arts are a good vehicle for learning Stav, a good way of learning the stances and the five principles. So one can learn Stav from the martial training.
The second answer is that one learns to know and focus one's own mind and to know and control the body. The crucial lesson is that it is seeing the web underlying reality that really matters not seeing what is simply on the surface. To put it simply, if someone claims to have understood Stav they can be invited to take up a staff (or any other weapon) and stop an attack. If they can't then they have more work to do, if they can then they are on their way to some understanding of Stav. Good martial training keeps us honest and humble.