stabbing the ref.

"Are you sure you should be doing this?" the chef asked, as we lined up for footwork practice. There wasn't really enough space. Yet again there were 40 or 50 fencers in the hall and most were lined up, trying to follow the coach's instructions without tripping over one another. Luckily it was a short practice just varying speed and length of step with the occasional lunge and recovery.

It probably wasn't wise, but I shan't feel the pain till tomorrow. My foot still hurts and the doctor did tell me to rest it. I have rested it. (When I sleep I rest it for hours at a time.) Fencing is a great deal better than not fencing. And fencing with lunging and movement is much better than standing still and trying to parry. Perhaps I say that because I'm not very good at parrying. Doubtless the practice has been good for me.

Yet again there were queues for pistes. After Easter we're to have the hall for longer which should resolve the situation. As it was, the chef and I spent most of the time fencing steam, though we took out turn on the electric piste for epeeists. For some reason, the chef insisted we do foil as well as epee, just so that we could remember how to do it. But I don't remember how to do it. I tried to recall how to parry a foil, how to get right of way, what the target area was.

The pistes seemed narrower, though perhaps my clumsiness was to blame. On the electric piste, I was too close to the sabreurs, who seemed even more exuberant than usual after their successes in the recent Open. I was trying to be exuberant too, I've worked out that if I take enough exercise, I can't feel the pain in my foot any more - and that must be a good thing, mustn't it? ("You mean it's numb," the chef said critically.) I wasnt very successful but I got some hits and at least I was moving backward and forward and managing some lunges, though they weren't very deep. I tried some tricks and actually got a couple of hits by coming en garde in the low line and then raising my blade ... until the chef worked out what I was doing and hit me on the wrist. I tried some energetic parries and a few more odd blade positions - that's when I hit the ref.

She wasn't our ref. - she was reffing the sabreurs on the next piste, and perhaps I did no more than catch the body wire which wasn't properly tucked in her breeches' back pocket. I don't know what the penalty is for stabbing the ref. - or whether a ref. on an adjacent piste can impose a penalty. It wasn't a proper bout anyway - just a knockabout.

I lost the only scored (steam) bout that I had, against one of the male epeeist. He won 15-8, which would be a good score for me if I didn't suspect that he was deliberately leaving his forearm open for me to hit. Sometimes I missed. The chef reffed and I didn't stab her, even when I wasn't sure about the point. When I reffed the short bout that followed (curtailed by closing time) I was too tired to see the blades clearly. They flashed and blurred and I wasn't sure where the hits had landed.

My foot suffered twinges and the last half-mile of the walk h ome made me wonder if I'd been wise to fence. But I don't regret it, even though there may be pain tomorrow.