An Interesting Note on Warrior Culture.

I'm here in Wales to create Cast Iron sculpture and share in an environment with people from around the US and the U.K. Classic. If you know me though, you know I've got a million things on my mind. One of the things I've been thinking about of late is warrior tradition and marital culture. Most people seem to have these things and well, if you've ever had to fight to protect yourself you've developed part of your culture and tradition around such things.

Fighting men and women move different ways in different parts of the world, some with very quick even acrobatic movements, other with low heavy movements and these are based on the people. If your people fought with heavy armor, falling down, or knocking someone down was very significant, because if you fell with heavy armor, you could drown in shallow water, be killed easily etc. Some people developed flying kicks and jumping motions, high sword fighting motions, long poles and heavy weapons for fight people invading on horseback. There were are are different types of movement philosophy etc.

Wales and the U.K. have their own interesting martial traditions. One thing I've heard in my first day here is that all the oak in the land was owned by the crown. It was that important because they needed the extremely strong wood for the Navy. Being an island people in a land with a history of quite a bit of war obviously your navy is taken quite seriously. Another thing I'd heard before coming, but that was just reiterated to me was that at a certain point, one of the Kings Henry mandated that all boys and men learn to use and practice a certain number of hours daily with the longbow, the quarterstaff, and the shortsword. One of the woods, said to be the best for making the bow, was Yew. I was just told it was planted in churchyards. One of the King Henrys designated the eastern part of the church yard to not be used for burial, but for archery competitions for boys after church. So Yew was grown at the church, used for bow making, archery was held in the church yard near the graveyard and apparently Yew is poisonous and keeps the animals out. An interesting blend of martial and religious tradition I'd say. I'd also say it's a remarkably practical and function idea of a group of people interested in martial capacity.