new bruises

"It doesn't hurt, does it?"

I've lost count of the number of times non-fencers have posed that question. The majority of people seem to assume that hitting being hit with a sword doesn't hurt because the point is covered - and fencing clothing provides 100% protection. They're a bit shocked when they see the bruises.

Most sports hurt. Just watch runners' faces when they're doing the London Marathon. Even the gentlest sports involve aching limbs while muscle-damage is a frequent problem. Years ago, my daughter lost the use of her right arm for weeks after a teacher urged her to try harder at the shot-putt. (She was 12 and small for her age with no idea of the technique required.) I experienced hockey at school and would say that fencing is less dangerous. My best technique at hockey involved lurking in the pavilion to avoid being hurt - or volunteering as a back on the strongest side. I've been hit by a hockey ball and that was far worse than any fencing injury. Friends and colleagues who go to the gym return worn out and often gasping for a drink.

I suppose what alarms people is the idea that fencers set out to damage each other - that we see bodies in terms of target areas.







But no good fencer sets out to damage or wound an opponent. The aim is to land a secure hit, with just the right degree of force, attaching the blade - although sabres are different because they employ a slashing movement which cuts, usually lightly, to the head or torso. Sometimes I don't even feel the hit scored against me - but that's usually when my opponent is an expert using minimal force and maximum accuracy to score the point.

Bruises happen when a fencer uses too much force or when a fencer moves toward the attack, often to launch her/his own attack. Because of the number of hits in an evening's fencing, bruises are an inevitable result. Sabreurs display red slash-marks on their arms, foilists have small, circular dots while epeeists have larger, darker bruises because of the greater weight of the weapon and the greater force required to score a hit. Often I have a bruised area - usually on my right upper arm - where I've been hit repeatedly. This should tell me about problems I'm having with my guard.

It's quite possible that I cause worse bruises than I receive because I'm a less-practised fencer than most of my opponents and weaker at blade control. Although I'm often advised to be more aggressive, I sometimes move in too fiercely in an effort to attach the point. My opponents are almost always polite and say "sorry" if they think they've hit too hard.

This week I have a blue-purple splodge on my arm just below last week's yellow-green. As summer has arrived, I may have to explain the bruises.

My fitness and fencing are recovering slowly, though I was no match for the chef, who has returned after a couple of weeks' absence. "I'm not fit," she assured me, moving easily through footwork practice, and showing off the depth of her lunge. (The dancer has a brilliant lunge - the lowest I've ever seen. He was showing it off before sabre practice. Sadly he's deserted the epeeists for a couple of weeks, just because he wants to prepare for a competition.) Of course, it took me a while to land a single hit on her and, when I did, most of them were doubles.

Still, I fenced, I managed some hits and one or two of them pleased me. Between bouts, the chef told us of her planned move to Paris in the autumn - where else would chefs go? I offered her a job swap. I'd have liked to work near the Isle de St. Louis. But negotiations broke down. I was prepared for a salary swap, so long as I kept the cat and she looked after and maintained the teenagers. For some reason, she didn't think this a good deal. So I shall continue fencing in England while the chef will be cooking - and, I hope, fencing - in France.

She came to watch me getting on my bike with sword-bag, rucksack, handbag and water bottle. "You need a mounting block," she remarked. "A girl's bike would be easier." But I love my sturdy bike despite its cross-bar. It cost me £45 in a second-hand bike shop some years ago and was one of the best purchases I ever made. Somehow I managed to mount the bike without a block, at which point the chef noted that I'd forgotten to turn on my rear light. She turned it on for me. Then she said, "If I were your children, I wouldn't let you ride like that."

I said goodbye, wobbled a little, and cycled off into the night.

spag. bol. and daleks

NO FENCING THIS WEEK.

You may choose to stop reading here, but I suspect most fencers have had the experience of injury, although being hit by a flying sabre blade or stabbed by an unbaited epee is far more glamorous than a tumble from a ladder.

I am not entirely immobilised. I went shopping (by taxi, which felt luxurious) and even managed a day in the office (more taxis). I even managed a pub lunch with a friend. It helps to have an excellent local. And I dreamed about fencing.

The doctor signed me off work for ten days. When I asked him, he said very firmly that I mustn't fence last week, because any epee hit would aggravate the injury so that it would take far longer to heal. For a while I thought this might mean that I could fence this week, even though I was signed off work - some lack of logic there.

But I noticed I was tiring easily. Even the shopping trip left me shaky. And my leg remained stiff and painful, although the bruise, from my knee to the top of my thigh, was no longer the original deep purple. The day before fencing, I acknowledged that an ability to climb the stairs at home wasn't quite the same as agility on the epee piste. And I recognized that a light epee touch to the bruise might be even more painful than an affectionate cat patting me gently in his quest for food. Brief ideas of a little light foil were discarded too - my career as The Limping Blade would have to wait. I would spend the evening at home having supper in front of the TV.

The idea became more appealing when my daughter announced that she would cook supper, assisted by her boyfriend (the occasional sabreur). They are good cooks with a growing repertoire of dishes. Today's choice was the student staple spaghetti bolognese (vegetarian version with Quorn mince). As they took over the kitchen and began to chop garlic, I settled down on the sofa to watch the TV.

I rarely watch television although, at the moment, I have a weekly engagement with Doctor Who. I watched the first episode in 1963, when the Doctor was a stern, unpredictable grandfather, and have followed it ever since. The peak of my addiction was the period when Douglas Adams was script editor and occasional author and the doctor was reincarnated as Tom Baker, with wild hair, an absurdly long scarf and a penchant for jelly babies. My children had to make do with repeats when they were growing up, as there were no new series between 1989 and 2005, though there was a film. Then Doctor Who returned, better than ever, and I'm an addict again.

Instead of fencing, there was a programme that took me back to TV in my childhood. It was about live TV, back in the days when television dramas were broadcast as they were acted and repeats were repeat performances, often with a different technical crew. I don't know if any Doctor Who episodes were broadcast live - I wasn't paying enough attention - but at some point in the evening there was clip of the all-important episode that introduced the daleks.

Doctor Who and his companions move about time in their spaceship, the Tardis, which disconcertingly resembles (from the outside) a 1960s police telephone box. Originally the programme was intended to be educational - no aliens but history and scientific theory for children. Then the daleks arrived. They are impervious to usual methods of attack and their chief aims are domination of the solar system and the extermination of "inferior" species, such as humans. Their mechanical voices would rise to a screech as they repeated "EX-TERM-I-NATE .... EX-TERM-I-NATE", blasting fire and rays at the unfortunate beings who writhed in agony before them. They were deliciously scary and, when I was 9-years-old, I would hold my arms stiffly and attempt the dalek glide in the primary school playground. We were all daleks, screeching "EX-TERM-I-NATE" at one another.

It's not so sophisticated as fencing. But the early daleks had a problem that regularly led to their overthrow: they couldn't go upstairs. Their thought processes were remorselessly logical too; imaginative fantasy confused them. And while daleks have become streamlined and colour-coded for the 21st century, those old black and white daleks took me back to my childhood and Saturday evening viewing: Juke Box Jury followed by Doctor Who.

Supper was wonderful. Tagliatelli, which I prefer, had been used instead of spaghetti and the sauce was plentiful and well-flavoured. Every so often I would exclaim, "I remember that," or "Look, it's a dalek" and the teenagers would say "yes, mum," in a tone suggesting they were humouring the old. A glass of wine distracted me from my aching leg.

It must have been good for me. I'm definitely feeling better today. Next week, surely, I'll be fencing again.

Doctor Who is brilliant - but it would be improved by a bit more swordplay.

"real fencing ... like in the films"

I don't do sabre. Well, mostly I don't. But I've been flirting with sabre and, I'm afraid, keen to have a go. It means a new set of opponents, a new set of moves and, inevitably, different ways of hitting people and (mostly) being hit. It also means, on a night like tonight, with few epeeists or foilists, there's a lot more fencing.

The other (much younger) woman epeeist and I have been teasing the teenage epeeists for too long. Once we were spotted with sabres in our hands, they stood round us gleefully. Here were two grown up epeeists asking to be hit.

After a few jokes, two young men appointed themselves as our coaches and we were taken off for one-to-one elementary training. We practised dutifully and didn't say "ouch" when the teenagers hit us. Then the teenagers decided we were ready to fence one another. I overheard an argument. "My one's better than your one," my teenage coach began, starting a small dispute. I feared they'd be betting on us soon.

We faced each other, smiling hopefully, legs bent, arms in what we hoped was the en garde position for sabre. "Fence," said one of the teenagers and then, when each waited for the other to make the first move, "Play ... Go."

As we began to tap at each other and try to remember how to riposte after a parry, I caught sight of the eager teenagers and the humour of it all overcame me. I couldn't stop giggling. And my opponent started giggling too. We tapped and parried a bit, still giggling, and the teenagers drifted away.

Two sabreuses, one a veteran with a recent European gold medal and one a teenager with rather less experience, tried to help and encourage us. We still weren't managing speed and brilliance. After a while we returned to epee. "It's time to go back to normal swords," my opponent said. But we'd been corrupted by sabre. It was hard to remember to hit below the belt or use the force needed to attach the blade.

A coach took an interest in our attempts at sabre. He made us practise moves with him, taking turns to move backwards and forwards, parrying above the head. It looked good. It felt good too. As my opponent remarked, "It's real fencing - like in the films."

But we agreed that sabre was too expensive and too hot in summer. There is much more kit and the swords break easily in combat - a snapped sabre-blade flies across the hall every two or three weeks.. One of the teenagers showed off after his sword broke in four places - he thought there should be an award for the most dramatically broken sword.

So we aren't sabreuses. We probably won't try for Mistress-of-Arms in the club championship, though it's tempting. My opponent reckons she has a chance of a "hot date" so I'd be on my own. No woman does all three weapons. In theory I could come last in everything and still be a champion. But there isn't a trophy and I'm not sure there's enough sabre kit to borrow. And I think it would be more of a joke than a contest. But it might be fun ... I might even learn something. I could take on the entire club ...