epee coaching and slow fencing
Another dark, icy night.
The epee coach returned and his encouragement made me realise I'd been improving after all. Ten minutes into my individual lesson, my arm began to ache from the weight of the epee - I'd been gripping it too tight. It might have been excitement. I perservered, trying not to mind the dragging in my upper-arm muscles. I practised parrying and disengage attacks, often missing the stimuli and making the wrong response. But when it worked my blade was landing more or less where it should, with a decent angle and firm attachment.
I felt better and healthier than I have for weeks.
I'm not convinced I'll parry much, given the wrist-strength of some of the men. They may seize control of my blade even when I have the advantage of forte to foible. But I've been given another possibility (if only I were faster ...) and one day I may have the chance to use it in a bout. For the moment I'm doing everything slowly, trying to get the moves right.
After a while, I was paired with another epeeist (a woman!) so that we could fence slowly together and try out what we had learned. Only at the end did I fence on the electric piste a another tall male fencer. (I lost, of course, but not disgracefully.) Slow as I was, I managed a few hit and felt quite pleased with myself.
Afterwards the cold hit. I don't mind - I'm improving, still learning. I'm a fencer.
The epee coach returned and his encouragement made me realise I'd been improving after all. Ten minutes into my individual lesson, my arm began to ache from the weight of the epee - I'd been gripping it too tight. It might have been excitement. I perservered, trying not to mind the dragging in my upper-arm muscles. I practised parrying and disengage attacks, often missing the stimuli and making the wrong response. But when it worked my blade was landing more or less where it should, with a decent angle and firm attachment.
I felt better and healthier than I have for weeks.
I'm not convinced I'll parry much, given the wrist-strength of some of the men. They may seize control of my blade even when I have the advantage of forte to foible. But I've been given another possibility (if only I were faster ...) and one day I may have the chance to use it in a bout. For the moment I'm doing everything slowly, trying to get the moves right.
After a while, I was paired with another epeeist (a woman!) so that we could fence slowly together and try out what we had learned. Only at the end did I fence on the electric piste a another tall male fencer. (I lost, of course, but not disgracefully.) Slow as I was, I managed a few hit and felt quite pleased with myself.
Afterwards the cold hit. I don't mind - I'm improving, still learning. I'm a fencer.
posted by kathz | 10:42 pm
4 Comments:
cool - sounds good - it is nice when you can actually tell you are making progress and things come together - of course when they later fall apart, that particular memory tends to haunt one.
Sounds like you are doing well. Whenever you are in a bout, check your on guard position (of the arm) is the fore arm covered sort of thing. Every time you do this, relax your arm. That is how I got over it. You arm will not hurt fanymore. Glad you feel better.
Now about the preceding post: I just read (some place) that one touch epee was the result of a book. I have just searched looking for the title and cannot find it. I thought it was by Conan Doyle, but perhaps not. I have never read it, but I have seen part of truly bad movie that was based on it. It is set in the time of the Napolionic war. There is a British officer that is an idiot and vain. He is given a message so that it will fall into the hands of the French. They want him to fail. However he is a great swordsman and shot. He is a great rider and so on and so on.
I have no idea if this is true and I like your story better, but it sounds like the kind of thing you might be interested in.
OPPPS! I have my usual mistakes in the post, but what I meant to say was Pentathlon rather than one touch epee.
Thanks for the encouragement - it really helps.
I don;t know the source of the story but I have a colleague at work who also fences epee (at a different club) and I'll see if he knows. He's immensely well read and far more knowledgeable about fencing than me. (He also helped me prepare for my grade one foil, and we were found, swords in hand, in the staff common room, which created quite a reaction.)
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