fopée again

I was exhausted - the sort of exhaustion that lingers when a virus has visited and not quite gone. Somehow I got on my bike but, by the time I reached the leisure centre, I was breathless. I wondered about going home again but the effort seemed too great. Reluctantly, I pulled myself into my kit.

There weren't many epeeists and, for once, I was relieved. "I'll do a little foil," I said, thinking of the lightness of the weapon. I was forgetting about the speed and the need to adopt a lower fencing stance against smaller, lighter and mostly younger opponents.

I should have fenced a tall young man who moves fast and hits hard. The architect must have seen my trepidation and, knowing I'd been ill, suggested I wait and fence one of the intermediates - a girl of about 17 who, it turned out, has excellent technique and accuracy. I have neither.We set out to fence to 10 and I tried to remember the rules of foil. As I paused before each attack, trying to establish right of way, I quickly discovered that my young opponent had a deft and deadly parry riposte. Her neat fencing quickly gave her a clear lead of 6-2.

Evidently my foil skills were not going to win the bout. I changed my method and began to fence foil like an epeeist, but doing my best to aim for the smaller target area. This puzzled my opponent who had been trained to fence foilists. I got rid of the pause, worked on taking the blade and forcing my attack through. It wasn't pretty but I began to win points and suddenly we were at 8-8. My opponent was looking anxious and uncertain - an advantage to me, I thought. I continued with my furious and inelegant technique and she faltered. It was 9-8 to me and I was suddenly determined to win. The next point was a messy scuffle but I landed the necessary hit. 10-8 to me.

The architect, who had been watching, could hardly stop laughing. "That wasn't foil - that was epée," she said.

"I know," I replied, "but it worked."

Later I fenced the architect at epée. She fenced like a foilist. She won.