I recently found an opportunity to take up fencing. Wanting to be somewhat prepared, I read a book! The book (The Art and Science of Fencing, by Nick Evangelista) recommended something I've found to be true in numerous other hobbies: Buying one's own equipment is generally recommended. Having your own gear not only provides consistency for better learning, but investing in equipment also helps to "anchor you in the game," as he put it.
So, in an effort to find out more about the available equipment, I searched for fencing equipment reviews on the Google-nets, and this site is about the only one out there with anything resembling comprehensive reviews, much less an open community, on the subject. If there are others out there, by all means, let me know.
Amusingly, what I've learned from reading the forums here for the past few days has not proven as useful as I've hoped. The only things people seem to agree on are that the One-piece Vniti guards are awesome, and that shelling out for a high end mask (the LP X-changes in particular) is a good investment. For every other piece of gear that someone recommends, someone else has a horror story about that same piece of gear, and recommends something else.
But that's a discussion for the armory forum. I'm new (one lesson so far, and it was free!), but fairly hooked. I don't plan on competing (or even bouting) until I'm comfortable enough in the sport, so large investments aren't necessary. Having a community, however, is invaluable.
Colored epee guard! - Seems like I can't find them anywhere than here... Was a bit put off by the cost to get it mailed to europe (34 dollars?), And found the forum while I was still wondering how to solve that problem, and now I am kind of stuck here! (has to look by, once in a while, to check if the epee guards is still there!)
In a fit of nostalgia, I tried searching for my old fencing master, Julius Alpar. I found a reference to him on this forum and I followed it... ergo---here I am! I was a pupil at Berkeley in the earley 60's, and I was fortunate to be in the Dramatic Art dept. As such, I wanted to learn to fence and so I took first, Foil and then Saber. Learning from Maestro Alpar was a daunting but very rewarding experience. He was an excellent teacher and would be very careful to correct errors and help with problems... at first. However, if one persisted in making the same mistake, it was not uncommon to feel the flat of his blade where it would teach the greatest physical lesson! All of us who were blessed to be his students loved and admired him. One thing he was a stickler about was punctuality. I clearly remember arriving at a private lesson one day at the precise time, waiting for the Campanille Bell to strike and walking into the hall only to find him occupied with another student! I was furious! This was MY time and MY lesson! He kept me waiting for a quarter of an hour before stopping his lesson and telling me to fight with the other student. I was more than ready to show this guy up for stealing my lesson time and I charged onto the piste ready to kill! Needless to say he easily cut me down to size and deflated my ego back to a more reasonable size. When he had delivered five straight hits, Alpar called a halt, we removed our masks and I was introduced to my opponent...Marcel Marceau... He was in the Bay Arera performing in his One Man Show in San Francisco. Many years later, when I was an establishe jobbing actor in London, I went to see M. Marceau. Going backstage after the show, I was delighted that he remembered the encounter with some affection. It has been many years since I held a sword, but the ideals and concepts which M. Alpar taught me are still a great part of my life.
Hello, just poking my head in. I'm in my second season as a referee (used to fence foil, but taken out by injury), and figured that I should check out the online community as well.
well i was searching for fencing tips cos i have a competition in the weekend and it looked pretty cool with people giving each other advice and stuff so i decided to join =D
I was looking around for L.A. area fencing clubs when I decided to take it up again, and the site seemed to have a lot of useful information.
Now, can anybody tell me off the top of their head how you go about learning more about right of way rules, refereeing, and line judging? As a relative sabre n00b, it'd be nice to be able to follow the action better on the strip, and would probably reduce my coach's frustration level considerably if he doesn't keep having to explain every darn thing to me.
Download the rule book and the practice tests, take a referee seminar,watch videos and pester Oiuyt, Catwood, KD5MDK, Notalent and the other refs on this board with numerous questions.
And, of course, practice...
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