Tuesday went to the Adult session at the Y. Only two adults came, Curt and Raj. Everyone else is on vacation or working late. Coordinated with Coach Mark before, so I worked with Curt and Raj on distance since that seems to be a weakness Mark noticed during some bouts. After working that, we set-up a round-robin 5-touch bout where you only score if you did one pre-announced technique. I was not allowed to parry-4; Raj could only parry-riposte (he's been pushing the attacks); Curt had to move. Very ...

Today was the last day of sports, a humid day with strong sun. The boys arrived as usual to hang out in the hallway outside the squash courts with their sabres and kit, waiting for me to come unlock and turn the lights on. As usual, they did their warm-up through the squash courts, a hilarious affair that highlights how very nerdy and uncoordinated some of them are. They run three circuits of the four courts, talking and laughing and bumping into one another. I had them do a little footwork ...

It was a small crew tonight, just Will, qatet, Simon, and me, but a good practice nonetheless. We drilled and bouted. Although I was still a little stiff from Saturday night's practice, I could still feel the boost in timing, and drilling has been awfully good for my hand, so I was able to bring a little more oomph to my fencing than I have for the last few weeks. I beat Simon 15-0, got some good touches on Will, and managed to change when fencing qatet, which I haven't been doing much lately. ...

Tomasz is now also holding practice on Saturday nights at Medeo, at least for the time being, and he held a 6:00 spot open for me for a lesson, because I had asked about taking lessons. Saturday night for the next month or so is much better than any other night, because I don't have to get up early on Sunday.

He showed me proper Polish sabre salute, critiqued and adjusted my parries, and showed me five different beat attacks. It all reminds me of what Dave Mandell used to have us ...

What a slug I’ve become. I didn’t fence today again. I’m rationalizing it by saying that I’m giving my swollen arm one more week of rest. (from when my elbow decided to grow a new foot and the bruising went from my bicep to the heel of my hand. It’s still a little bruised and my lesson yesterday was harder than I thought. It was more difficult to hold my blade and perform certain actions. I also figure getting hit in that arm (epee) may not have been the smartest idea either. (I know, the ...