09-08-2004, 05:31 PM
|
#1 | | Just Joined
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: usa
Posts: 12
| Why do you fence
I am writing an article, and I am looking for why you like/love/obsessed with fencing. What keeps you from quitting the sport?
I know I cant get enough love competing, practicing, hell even the bruises are good, sometimes good conversation pieces. | 
|  | | And now for this message... |
| |
09-08-2004, 07:45 PM
|
#2 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Northern Ohio
Posts: 351
| Its stress relief from my job, it gets me out of the house, and my adopted family would probably kidnap me and "drag" me to practice and tournaments if I stopped showing up. | 
| | |
09-08-2004, 08:37 PM
|
#3 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 270
| The fencing strip is the only place I know where I can legally hit people with swords. | |
| | |
09-08-2004, 08:46 PM
|
#4 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 5,545
| So I can accomplish something with my life and be part of a tight knit community like no other.
__________________
"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. And from this side only! The flight of a half-man, half-bird. Dinosaurs nuzzling their young in pastures where strip malls should be. Cookies on dowels. All those moment, lost in time. Gone, like eggs off a hooker's stomach. Time to die" -Phil Ken Sebben
| |
| | |
09-08-2004, 10:45 PM
|
#5 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: MA
Posts: 7,472
| Because I have to.
Sounds weird, but if I go like a week without fencing, my thoughts are centered more and more on fencing, until I am jumping up and down the first time I get to go to my club.
One time I stopped fencing for three weeks. It was horrible. I remember lying on the floor and thinking "what is the purpose of life? I'm just wasteing energy in living.", etc.  Actually, I didn't even realize that it was the lack of fencing that had gotten me down until I finally got back to the club, and I was happy again.
So, if I stop fencing, I become depressed. And I agree with D+F+P=Hadouken!, rouge nine, and elendae on top of it. | |
| | |
09-08-2004, 11:43 PM
|
#6 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: DC area
Posts: 241
| Why do you fence?
To get to the other side. | |
| | |
09-09-2004, 09:33 PM
|
#7 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: Northern Ohio
Posts: 351
| Quote: |
Originally Posted by RogueNine The fencing strip is the only place I know where I can legally hit people with swords. | That's true, although I'm usually the person getting hit... but, at least I can frighten people with the bruises, and make little old ladies glare at my husband because they think he's hitting me.  | |
| | |
09-09-2004, 10:01 PM
|
#8 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: My happy place!
Posts: 1,514
| I fence because I love it, because it gives me a place to just be someone completely different than my normal self. (for instance, I just lose myself on the piste, I turn into a terror, my senses just multiply tenscore, it's insane) I love hanging out with people that have similar interests to me, and it's just great fun to stab people.
__________________
Sarah 
Probitas lauditur et alget.
Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.
| |
| | |
09-09-2004, 10:40 PM
|
#9 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 270
| Quote: |
Originally Posted by Elendae That's true, although I'm usually the person getting hit... but, at least I can frighten people with the bruises, and make little old ladies glare at my husband because they think he's hitting me. | Oh yes. You also get the coolest bruises. No other sport can leave you with X shaped bruises. | |
| | |
09-09-2004, 10:44 PM
|
#10 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: My happy place!
Posts: 1,514
| I love the bruises! But when I was in public school, my teaches always pulled me aside to ask about my 'drug problem' so I told them that it's my business that I didn't take medicine, and they looked at me insanely...
__________________
Sarah
Probitas lauditur et alget.
Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.
| |
| | |
09-09-2004, 10:46 PM
|
#11 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: MA
Posts: 7,472
| Quote: |
Originally Posted by RogueNine Oh yes. You also get the coolest bruises. No other sport can leave you with X shaped bruises. | I loved one day when I ended up fencing all 3 weapons. I was able to identify all my bruises. The little ones on my chest were foil, the long red welts on my arm were épée, and the slash marks across my right shoulder were sabre. (Because I'm not to good at sabre). | |
| | |
09-10-2004, 12:04 AM
|
#12 | | Member
Join Date: Jul 2004
Posts: 37
| Quote: |
Originally Posted by mrbiggs I loved one day when I ended up fencing all 3 weapons. I was able to identify all my bruises. The little ones on my chest were foil, the long red welts on my arm were épée, and the slash marks across my right shoulder were sabre. (Because I'm not to good at sabre). | The little ones on your chest were not bruises. They were your body's way of saying. "Hey, toughen up you wet noodle. Put down the glorified rectal thermometer and fence a real blade!"
Also, your right shoulder has all the welts because (if I assume you are right handed) you hold the gaurd of that rectal thermometer too close due to the stupid rules of the blade. The sabre should have a stronger gaurd further right. If you happen to be left handed, apply the aforementioned principle to your off hand defense. | |
| | |
09-10-2004, 12:25 AM
|
#13 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Western PA
Posts: 399
| I fence for recreating and stress relief, I compete because its recreation and stress relief. I love fencing as a game, despise it as a sport, but to me it is a game at all levels and not a sport, which is the only reason that I don't fence differently at tournaments than I do at practice: The best I can do. (Other than the occasional mocking of pistol grippers when I start flicking with my italian weapon. THAT's always fun) | |
| | |
09-10-2004, 12:42 AM
|
#14 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: New Zealand
Posts: 185
| It is a family thing. my grandfather, my mum, her 5 other siblings, my dad, my sister (not anymore) and me. The great thing is i get all this hand me down gear, my uncle came over to our house the other week and GAVE me a whole load of stuff including 2 FIE foils, 2 epees 2 sabres, 2 jackets a mask and a bag. COOL! Also with my mum being the head coach in the club i get free lessons, trouble is i have to give them too.
But i love it, I'm good at it and i keeps me reasonably sane... 
Also the bruises, i get great talkings to at work, at school etc everyone thinks im abused or else im clumsy, theyre not wrong, but the look on their faces when i tell them theyre from swords...
__________________
"The pen may be mightier than the sword - except for in a duel."
"I had to get up in the morning at 10 o'clock at night 1/2 an hour before i had to go to bed, drink a cup of sulfuric acid, work 29 hours a day down down mill unpaid and have to pay for permission to come to work and when we came home our dad and our mum would kill us and dance around on our grave singing hallelujah!"
| |
| | |
09-10-2004, 12:42 AM
|
#15 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: My happy place!
Posts: 1,514
| Ooh, you have an Italian grip? How much do those cost? I've been interested in them... Where did you get it?
__________________
Sarah
Probitas lauditur et alget.
Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.
| |
| | |
09-10-2004, 10:58 AM
|
#16 | | Feline Groovy
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Tidewater VA
Posts: 693
| Quote: |
Originally Posted by RogueNine Oh yes. You also get the coolest bruises. No other sport can leave you with X shaped bruises. | Consider taking up racquetball just for grins and giggles then -- getting smashed with a hard shot leaves a nifty O-shaped bruise. Then you can tell people you play Combat Tic-Tac-Toe and show them your X and O bruises to prove it.
(You don't have to be weird to live in my little world ... but it sure helps.) | |
| | |
09-10-2004, 03:42 PM
|
#17 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Mass/ct
Posts: 3,226
| I fence... Well.. I started fencing beacuse.. it looked like fun and i felt like stabbing people.. and my entire life i have been interested in swords and old stuff.. so it seemed like an awesome thing to do.. but my entier life it was always one of those things to do "some day" than i fo9und out my school had it.. and.. it ended the week before band ended.. sooooo.. i decided.. beacuse i am the type of obsessive person who has to do somthing constantly... at least 4 days a week after school.. or i will go totally insane.. and fencing... seemed like it would be a good choice
and the reason i stuck with fenicng.. is it was a good way to do a team activity and make friends.. without having to depend on hwo everyone elose does for you to suceed.. I hate the idea of losing beacuse one person screwed up.. and always have.. so after doing bowling.. archery.. ice skating.. and a ton of toher sports.. i found fencing.. and it really seems like the one for me... | |
| | |
09-10-2004, 04:52 PM
|
#18 | | Immortal
Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Heidelberg, GE
Posts: 5,454
| Quote: |
Originally Posted by VorpalCat Consider taking up racquetball just for grins and giggles then -- getting smashed with a hard shot leaves a nifty O-shaped bruise. Then you can tell people you play Combat Tic-Tac-Toe and show them your X and O bruises to prove it.
(You don't have to be weird to live in my little world ... but it sure helps.) |
Yeah....
I got hit hard in the head with the ball today, and walked into a forehand followthrough (racket, not the ball) with my jaw...
I fence because I want to be prepared if I'm sucked into an alternate reality where it is a valuable skill...
Read Glory Road.
MR
__________________
Why sabre? Because you don't take heads with the point.
| |
| | |
09-10-2004, 04:57 PM
|
#19 | | Senior Member
Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: My happy place!
Posts: 1,514
| Quote: |
Originally Posted by sabreur I fence because I want to be prepared if I'm sucked into an alternate reality where it is a valuable skill... | You know... that's also a very good reason, I started up fencing just in case all of the world's guns and bombs and such stopped working I could fight the powers with other weapons. (also the reason that I practice archery) But fencing just has so many great reasons to continue with the sport, I can't names them all. 
__________________
Sarah
Probitas lauditur et alget.
Odi profanum vulgus et arceo.
| |
| | |
09-10-2004, 10:59 PM
|
#20 | | Just Joined
Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Posts: 16
| I fence, practice archery, ride horseback, and know karate.
Some day they will discover time travel and I want to be ready. 
That and you get to stab people and not get arrested. Of course it's not exactly water cooler conversation.
"so I had a great game of golf and then had a few beers. What did you do?"
"I had a few beers and then stabbed a few people and went home" 
__________________
Man in Black : There's something I ought to tell you.
Inigo Montoya : Tell me.
Man in Black : I'm not left-handed either.
| |
| | | Thread Tools | | | | Display Modes |  Linear Mode | 
Posting Rules
| You may not post new threads You may not post replies You may not post attachments You may not edit your posts
HTML code is Off | | | All times are GMT -4. The time now is 10:47 PM. |
