Thanks for the kind messages wishing me better. I am pretty much on the mend anyway. So, a couple more thoughts about how being ill gives you a different perspective on things, if only for a short while.

Martial arts training requires some form of physical exercise. Well, perhaps you can become a fighting machine of awesome magnitude just by playing computer games, but probably only in your own mind. If you are going to develop any kind of real world skills and fitness you are going to need some real physical activity. When you have been used to a very high level of physical activity, both regular Stav training and physical work,it is very peculiar to find oneself unable to carry out the simplest of tasks without great effort and difficulty. I guess it is a kind of preview of old age but more importantly it has made me much more sympathetic to those just starting training and struggling with exercises I normally find very easy.

But as health returns so does the ability to train and the exercises I have been working with for many years seem fresh and challenging again as my body regains the ability to practice them. Martial arts should equip you to some degree for self-defence against random attacks. Hope fully that will never happen to you. Much more importantly martial arts practice will strengthen you for everyday life and speed your recovery when something does go wrong.

The other thing about being ill is that it gives you time to think, reflect and consider where you have come from and where you want to be going. While I was ill I revisited a book I wrote sixteen years ago called Stav the Fighting System of Northern Europe. Basically it is quite good but it it very much a snapshot in time and I found myself thinking about how the book came to be written and what has happened in the decade and a half since. So I wrote a sixteen page supplement to the book which I will be supplying with any future copy I sell. However any one who already has a copy of Stav the Fighting System is more than welcome to have a pdf version of the supplement, just email me and I will send you the link. Even if you haven't got a copy of the original book but still want to read the supplement then ask anyway, you will probably want to get a copy once you have read about it.

If you want to get a copy of the book then go to www.iceandfire.org.uk/lit.html#book

regards

Graham