After various adventures, including a very pleasant ten-day interlude on a Greek island, I am back at work, back training, and I hope back to a regular schedule for a while.
Went fencing in Mannheim on Wednesday--NH was there. We warmed up with the usual drills (parry riposte was atrocious), and fenced, mostly without keeping score.
It wasn't bad. I'm always amazed when I come back to fencing after a break at just how FAST the game is.
I worked, when I thought about it, on feeling
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I had an utterly fascinating lesson with Istvan about two weeks ago, which I can't recall, so there.
Went fencing in Mannheim on Wednesday. Got tied up at work for two hours before going, which put me in a less than optimal mood. AL was there, as were two ambitious ladies of an age (hint: they have taken up sabre because of a dearth of woman vet sabreurs in Germany). I soon discovered that I had forgotten my lame. Which turned out not to be a big deal because we couldn't get the scoring
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Two weeks ago, Wednesday, went to Mannheim, fenced, took a lesson. Nothing particularly different from most of my Mannheim sessions.
Took a lesson from Istvan on Sunday. We started with some moulinette training on a fencing dummy (he's been reading Barbasetti again). Although astonishingly old-fashioned (and more suited to 19th C fencing sabres, which are a bit different animal from today's weapon), there is quite a bit of value in doing moulinettes if you have time... they increase propr
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Drilled and fenced. Did not feel as good as the previous week, which is to be expected, I think. First time back, you always feel good (why is that?).
But not too stupid or slow. Hand and feet were a bit out of synch, and sense of tempo was in the toilet for the most part, but it was still ok. AL and NH left without lessons, but I hung around and got a nice long lesson with Alex.
Fencing in Mannheim last week and yesterday. Last week with AL and StNG. This week with AL and NH. Last week was meh. This week I felt pretty good... my feeling for tempo is coming back--if I can consistently train, and hit a tournament or two a quarter, I may actually approach something like fencing again.
Note: lost one bout to AL primarily because of pressing too hard and giving away the final movement of the attack a step early--so he would hit me in prep and annoy the living crap ou
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Fenced on Tuesday in Mannheim. NH, Issey, Stng (Sybille the new girl).
I had a sore lower back, from doing the pushme-pullyou the day before (which shows just how out of shape I am), but I stretched and did my lower back exercise, and was fine. Did the standard drills with NH, then fenced for about two hours... Actually felt really good. Fast, fairly good sense of tempo, relaxed.
Lesson with Alex:
1. From medium distance. S extend, advance, cut
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I've been fencing more than this blog shows, but not nearly as much as I would like. Work, dog illnesses, my illnesses, etc., have really not helped the effort.
NH, AL, Issey (!!!! yay !!!!!), and I. SW sat on the sidelines and was browbeaten thoroughly into agreeing to start coming regularly--he'd been fencing epee!
I fenced ok. Feel for tempo and the physical ability to claim tempo sucked... well, what did I expect?
This is probably the most sententious nonsense I've ever written about fencing. I am trying to get at what makes tempo, in the somewhat mystical sense of the right moment to attack (and the correct moment to execute a defensive action, which is an aspect of tempo that is not very often explored). But it is kind of like jazz, if you have to ask, you'll never know,... and very hard to pin down in words.
Back foot weighted = able to move forward and attack, not able to retreat.
10-02-2008 11:29 AM 
