Fencing, Week 7

Good gravy, this has gone fast!! I threw a chicken on the grill to smoke last night for dinner. Tonight is steak on the barbie.

Last night we worked on maintaining distance with our opponent and also worked on learning not to telegraph to your opponent what your plan is. That was something James mentioned when I (stupidly) went up against him. Granted he's been doing this for years but he pointed out that I "fish" with my blade (trying to ellicit a response by tapping my blade on his so I could deflect his blad away and I could go in for the kill) and by reading my posture he knew what I was going to do.

If I was planning to lunge I, apparently, would lean forward just prior to my action. He saw me do this and would retreat then move in to kill me.

Several times over.

We did some open fencing and my first partner was some cheezy kid that doesn't focus well. After doing a couple of drills he went all Star Wars on me, thinking he was Jedi hot-shit. I killed him.

Several times over.

I don't have time for this crap. I'm there to learn, not goof off. But I didn't say much for I didn't know if his parents were there or not. I reined him in a few times but that didn't last long.

After class Patrick worked with me on parrying and said my parrys are getting much stronger. To me, it feels like when I fence I'm just going after someone. I'm sure I'm parrying but if you were to ask me what I just did I'll shrug my shoulders and say, quite honestly, "I haven't the foggiest clue what I just did."

One of the dads that I like to go up against commented to Patrick about me saying that I'm relentless in my attacks.

"My husband says the same thing."

I went up again another dad whom I've never had the pleasure of fencing. He's a southpaw and that was very different for me. Everyone else is right-handed. So to fence when your opponent's weapon is on the same side as yours required some different strategy. I killed him a couple of times.

Spring Steel is March 14th, time TBA. I'll keep you posted!!