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.

fopee!

"fopee" is the new word to describe foilists who fence epee without changing their style. (It began with the sabreurs inventing "soil" to describe the way foilists fence sabre - and further new words will follow).

"fopee" fencers aren't always easy to beat, as I discovered this week. It was a treat to fence. The session was reinstated at short notice and many people (and most of the coaches) were away. However that meant plenty of turns on the electric piste, though the experience was enlivened by a silent box, which meant we needed a referee for epee. The referee was a foilist and she found it a puzzling experience: no description of the fencing phrase, no account of who established right of way - just "stop! the red light came on" and "fence!"

My opponents were two foilists (with a little epee experience) and we agreed to fence each other first at epee and then at foil - bouts to ten points. Fencing a slightly shorter woman with a foil technique (lots of elegant parries and considerable speed) was tricky after all the tall male epeeists and I lost the first bout badly. In the second, against a male opponent, I was ahead at 6-4 but lost confidence as my opponent improved and finally lost 10-7. Still, being ahead for a while has increased my confidence.

I lost at foil, of course, but not as badly as I'd feared and found I was beginning to remember techniques and enjoy foil again, though it was strange to be holding a weapon so light it seemed it might float away. My final bout was against an epeeist, who had been coaching. We fenced foil, which amused the onlookers. I imagine we both used epee techniques while trying to remember about target areas and right of way.

I was tired at the end. The greater speed of foil was draining and a warm evening added to the tiredness. (I imagine the few spectators could smell the difference.) I set out for the mile and a half walk home - in the dark, along a main road - feeling slightly depressed at the thought of six days without fencing, when, unexpectedly, two fencers driving past, turned the car round and came back to offer me a lift - with no idea of where I lived. Fortunately for them I was on their route. I was quickly home - and soon to bed, my spirits lifted by the unexpected kindness.