Josef was there so I asked if he had time for me--he had an operation a few weeks ago and wasn't around, so my plans of having a lesson with him every other week didn't pan out. However, he was available tonight. He said he would make the lesson twenty minutes, and I asked if he needed to rest. "No, for you, lady," he said.

We worked mostly on actions from cut to the hand.

With coach as right-hander:
Cut to inside of forearm, step back parry riposte (four, sweep five)
Cut to outside of forearm, step back parry riposte (tierce, sweep five)
And repeat with coach as left-hander.

Then it was an old standby of his, cut as if to forearm but past it, following the cut downward and dropping the hand to below the opponent's bell-guard, followed by a flat-of-the-blade tap to the underside of the forearm, with a hand pronated and a bend of the wrist; if the opponent finishes, sweep-parry five (a take in five with a circular swipe through space) followed by cut to chest. If the opponent holds the hand back, false line (late line) and deceive to chest. That sounds very complicated now that I write it out, but I did it with him before when I was workingi with him, and the trick is in making the miss clear and deceptive, finishing with the hand below the opponent's guard, and being prepared either to take the parry or attack in preparation.

It was very humid and I still haven't replaced my water bottle, so I kept running to the ladies' room and drinking from the tap. I fenced Dick J., Alexei, Mike K., Tom, Ahren, and Meng. I practiced the action successfully on Dick, Alexei, and Meng, though I lost one bout to Dick while trying because he figured out that deceiving the sweep-parry would allow him to get me and I still hadn't figured out the footwork to go with it. That's all right with me--I like practicing my new things on Dick because he's no dummy and it's at the right speed, even though he tends to belabor it when he beats me.

Alexei (who is a left-hander and therefore has the target a little closer) found the action I was working on particularly frustrating--I kept getting the hit from below no matter what he did with his hand--and he started making his version of fast deep attacks so I couldn't mess with him.

It didn't work with Mike, for the most part, and I didn't really try it with Ahren. With Ahren, I had success mostly with broken tempo, remise, and other late close actions designed to draw the counter-offensive actions he is setting up. I got one particularly clean one-light tempo attack to hand and the last touch was attack-remise with point, in just the right distance.

I didn't get to fence Nick, Shannon, or Bob.

Meng was my last bout; he was fencing very well and is learning fast. After our bout, he asked what you should do with taller opponents (because he is short). I explained to him that fencing any opponent is a matter of distance. The taller opponent has a longer distance, and you need to adjust for it. It occurred to me that maybe he didn't have a conception of advance-lunge being finishing distance, and how you can set up all your actions if you're outside that distance but it's too late if you're inside it. I showed him the sabre version of tease game (one fencer chases the other down the trip; the attacker is trying to finish with advance-lunge and the defender is trying to make the attack miss, hit the attacker in preparation, or parry and riposte; defender collapses the distance with small half advances and varied footwork; attacker makes small varied-tempo footwork outside the finishing distance until the time is right; switch roles at the end of the strip). I finished by showing him how to couple the footwork with a "show" of the bellguard and explained the footwork of the feint-attack. Then he said he was going to go write all that down. I know it was too much stuff, but I was so encouraged at how well he was fencing I thought he could probably use it.

As I was leaving, I told Lavinia he was doing a good job (she's his coach) and she asked what I thought she should do with him. I suggested she teach him proper attack distance by stretching and collapsing the distance and allowing him to choose when he attacks.

It was extremely humid tonight and my clothes were drenched with sweat. However, the ride home on my bike was lovely and when I crossed the Schuylkill the moon (and the windows of the lighted skyscrapers, and the twinkling blue lights on the Cira Centre) was reflected in the smooth surface of the river in a particularly felicitous way.