Principles and Practice of
Ancient Nordic Warriorship
This is the first time that Dharma Bodhi will teach a comprehensive STAV course online!
This course is a great introduction to the physical and spiritual practices of STAV, an ancient Norse tradition.
This course is open to everyone (regardless of your experience or lack of experience in a martial art).
This course will focus on the following:
- 16 Rune Stance Breathing Exercises:
- Physically embody and express the knowledge, power and specific energy of each of the 16 Runes of the Younger Futhark.
- Learn each Rune Stance’s movements and the unique breath patterns of the 5 classes of human beings.
- This is a profound moving meditation practice that unifies body, speech and mind.
- Physical training with a short staff :
- The short staff teaches you the basics of line, distance, timing and deceptive movement forming the basis for learning other STAV weapons such as the walking stick, sword, spear, etc.
- Solo practice of the staff is one of the most relaxing meditation exercises you could ever learn. Simultaneously, you get the benefits of gentle continuous whole body movements and some skill in self-defense.
- You’ll learn about the “5 Classes” :
- STAV includes psycho-spiritual typing of human beings via the meanings of the 16 Runes of the Younger Futhark, the 18 Goddesses and Gods of the pantheon, Norse Cosmology & Mythology, and warrior principles.
- Select verses from the Elder Edda (the Norse “Vedas”):
- Learn oral teachings on the verses related to Odin and cosmology.
*Note: This course is highly recommended for students embarking on the Way of the Warrior, because a good portion of the warrior ethic, martial technique, and guiding philosophy taught in the Way of the Warrior are drawn from STAV.
DETAILS
Dates:
Jan 24, Feb 21, March 21, April 18, May 30 & June 27 (2026)
Time:
Saturdays, 8am-11am & 1pm-3pm (Maine, USA Time)
* Recordings will be available in our community platform, if you are unable to attend live.
COURSE FEE
$788 / 6 classes (30 hours total)
About the Teacher
Dharma Bodhi (Kol Martens)
Dharma Bodhi began practicing yoga at seven years of age. In his teens he moved into practices of Chan Buddhism and Daoism received through his Chinese martial arts teachers in New York. After completing his chiropractic degree he studied in an Oral-Practice Tradition of Non-Dual Śaiva Tantra, taking initiation into one of the Daśnami Orders of practice from India. In 1996 he complete ācārya training under his Śaiva gurus. This training emphasized traditional Kundalinī Hatha Yoga and a progressive system of Meditation, along supportive studies in ritual/pūjā and yoga texts. Since graduating as a Śaiva ācārya, he took refuge with a great master of Bönpo Dzogchen meditation, and studied with him by taking multiple trips per year to his monastery in India for a period of 8 years. He studies both Dzogchen meditation & yoga (trul khor), and Dzogchen preliminary and advanced texts. Both his Śaiva and Dzogchen masters gave him the task of teaching these systems stripped of the unnecessary aspects of the cultures and languages they are found in. His Dzogchen master also gave him the task of translating two Tibetan texts. One of which is finished and the other is in process. He now lives with his wife, Sahaja Dakinī, and their two children in rural Maine, USA. He is developing a practice hermitage in the wilderness of Maine and a European teaching center on the border of Italy and Switzerland.
