epee classes

After swimming, I looked forward to fencing and the new, fitter me. I made up my mind. I would swim every weekend and join the beginners' epee course for regular coaching. Sadly the Saturday-morning fencing has ended for now and is moving further away. I may be able to get a lift occasionally but not every week. So the best I can do is fencing once a week plus swimming and a lot of running up and downstairs at work.

That was the theory, anyway. It's been complicated lately.

I had to plan carefully. For four weeks in a row, fencing day is the busiest of my working week. I have to get up as soon after 5 as I can to drink coffee, eat breakfast, make my packed lunch and get ready. I move slowly in the early morning. I leave before daylight and return long after dark. But it seemed just possible that, if I caught the right train, I could get changed quickly and cycle to fencing. I'd just be a little late. I tried not to think too much about the following morning, when I'd be up at 5.00 again.

The first week was tricky. There was an event at work that I probably should have attended. But not only did I want to fence, I also didn't think I could face a working day lasting more than 12 hours with a minimal chance of a break. I decided not to go. Instead I would rush home, rush out and stab people.

It didn't work like that.

The train arrived in the station on time and I caught it. It departed only five minutes late. Then, ten minutes into the journey, it halted, vast fields of dark on either side. It was some time before any announcement. Then we were told that there had been a "fatality on the line" and the pause turned into a long wait.

Eventually the train took a detour and deposited us all at the town that was its ultimate destination. Unfortunately it had bypassed my stop. The train staff said there would be a bus. The station staff said they didn't know anything about that but that there might be a train. There were quite a few of us on the platform, not wanting to complain about minor inconvenience when we knew others must be struck by grief, but still wanting to get home.

The trains started running again sooner than we'd feared but my 25-minute journey had taken two hours. It was too late for fencing.

I joined the epee class the following week. It wasn't full of beginners but included a couple of people who regularly beat me on the epee piste. Like me, they wanted more coaching - and going back to basics is a good way to begin.

By this time my plans for fitness were beginning to unravel. My laptop was playing up and I started carrying it everywhere with me, hoping someone could solve the problem. The extra weight tired me and I began taking the lift at work. I didn't blog either. The invasion of malware made me uneasy and it was almost a week till I was given useful advice about the free version of malware bytes (and how to open the computer in safe mode to download it). What with the tiredness, I didn't have much to inspire a blogpost either.

Then my daughter came home for the weekend. Most of her time was spent seeing friends, of course, and I missed Meeting to see her off. I didn't go swimming either. And, as my computer slowly convalesced, I began to feel bad about the gap in blogposts. I started a couple of posts but whenever I started the phone would ring or I'd be overcome by tiredness.

But I'm back now. And I managed to fence again last week - just for the epee class as I was too tired to do more. Yet I managed a series of accurate hits and reasonable counter-attacks. I may have been the slowest there - and was certainly the most exhausted - but I managed a little fencing at the end of a long day. And that was some sort of achievement. (And I got into work by 8.15 the following morning, despite snow and ice and blocked roads and railway lines. But that's another story.) .

supporters

Fencing doesn't usually attract a big audience. I'm not sure why because it's obviously exciting to watch a couple of people trying to stab one another. I bet we'd get an audience fast enough if we took to fencing in the streets as the pubs closed.
As things are, passers by at the leisure centre sometimes stand and watch - often with amazement and longing. They linger at the door or on the bridge above the halls, taking in the excitement of men, women and children attacking one another with swords. And then, sometimes, at club tournaments, a few partners, parents and children of fencers turn up to watch and cheer.

The only supporters I've ever had have been fellow fencers. My son would encourage me occasionally when he fenced. (He's thinking of returning but has outgrown all his kit - suddenly he's 6 feet tall.) And occasionally other fencers would cheer me on out of sympathy for the underdog.

Most of the encouragement I received came from fellow bloggers, often on the other side of the Atlantic, or friends who would try to remember to ask me how fencing had been. Friends are very good that way. A friend in France even phoned once to tell me about some fencing he'd seen on television, though he wasn't sure what weapon they'd been using. Sometimes I think my enthusiasm for fencing is quite a trial for my non-fencing friends.

In recent weeks I've been pleased to see a colleague bringing his son to the beginners' class. These days the beginners start before the rest of us so there's a chance to say hello and see how the son is progressing. It's early days but he's looking good and I hope he'll continue with the club. But when I arrived, I couldn't see them.

Attendance was pretty low for us. I don't know if the problem was the dark night or the flu and colds that are circulating. We're still in a cramped area as work continues on the floor of the big hall - we're not likely to be back there till mid-November. Perhaps other people felt the same reluctance as me when I got on my bike, wondering how long I could continue with fencing. My age is against me. My level of fitness is low and I don't get enough practice. I'm never going to be a good fencer. My ambition is to turn up and feel I did better than the week before. "Not enough," I thought. "Perhaps I'll give up next time my epee needs repair."

Warming up banished some of the gloom. I'm always surprised at the way exercise makes me feel better. Afterwards the fencers dispersed and I struggled into my plastron and jacket. There was only one other epeeist there - the Man man. He must have felt discouraged too as he's much better than me. But he smiled cheerfully and said we'd have to fence each other.

Just as I was connecting the wire from the box to my jacket - always tricky as the connecting loop is stiff and hard to open - I looked up at the gallery and saw my colleague with his son. They waved, smiled and gave me a thumbs up. "Oh dear," I thought as I put my mask on, "now they'll see how bad I am." But I was also warmed by the thought of watchers who were, indisputably, on my side. I reckoned I'd have to do my best.

Every time I looked up they were smiling, waving - even clapping gently. I lost more points than I won but it felt so good to have people on my side that I was making more of an effort - and winning more points than I expected. When, finally, my colleage and his son (still smiling) waved goodbye, I felt warmed by their support.

blogging birthday

A year ago today, I started this blog. I didn't know what direction it would take and very much doubted that anyone would read it. I'd been at a seminar where somebody worried that blogs were ephemeral and open to breach of copyright. That sounded fine to me. Someone else mentioned blogger.com as a way in which anyone could blog - implying, I thought, that sophisticated bloggers understood computers and wrote their own programs. I jotted down "blogger.com" and, that evening, went to my computer to find out what blogging was all about. I didn't even know the subject of my blog but the phrase "quaker fencer" came to mind, and that gave me a subject.

I started looking at other people's blogs, and they started reading mine. Soon we were posting comments. Hello in particular to early blog-friends: Beth on Screw Bronze; Jim, The Gray Epee; Brian, whose Big Book of Epee I still miss; and Dave, The Quaker Agitator. I value your friendship. Please keep blogging.

And hello too, to more recent readers and to anyone whose just dropping by. If you're new to blogging enjoy it.

If you like this blog, you may enjoy the blogs I link to in the sidebar, though I need to update the lists and add more. One is a more personal blog that I started on Boxing Day last year and there's another, which addresses politics, to which I contribute.

For the moment blogging seems the nearest there is to a democratic literary space where people can exchange views freely and form friendship. It's anarchic, which can cause problems, upsets and dangers - but it also offers bloggers the freedom to set their own rules. I don't know how long this will last; companies are moving in and governments are doubtless watching anxiously and, at times, intervening. For the moment it's a form in which I as a Quaker - and a fencer - feel very happy.