Salle du Lion

[Scaramouche]

Anybody here fence(d) with Salle du Lion? You Great Lakes Sectioners should be familiar with them. I swung by there last night to check them out again (I took two classes there a couple of years ago) and Lloyd Howell totally went out of his way to invite us to fence and introduce us to everybody. It was so sweet. I fenced four bouts (electric! hehehe aw man that was fun) with these kids that were like 2 or more years younger than me and got my butt whooped so bad but they've been fencing for years (one of the girls was Lloyd's daughter) so I wasn't upset. I got a few pointers about what I need to work on plus I learned just how to hook myself up at the strip! I'm so happy I got to go it was really great and I'm definitely fencing there next summer!

Am I wasting board space here? Probably so I'll just ask something actually related to fencing: How exactly do you pronounce "Salle"? That's a debate my best friend and I are having right now so any assistance would be much appreciated!

[lochinvar]

Glad you're having fun, Scar. Always a humbling experience to have your butt handed to you by the children...course, at my age, that happens all the time...

Pronunciation of 'Salle':

If you want to be authentic French, you should go for a sound somewhere between 'Sal' and 'Sol'. But most Americans that I've heard just anglicize it to 'Sal'. Like the girl's nickname. The 'e' is definitely silent.

[Event Horizon]

I wouldn't worry about wasting forum space. I think this was designed for fencers to get together and share. So have you incorperated what you leared at that Salle into your training?

[DamedEscrime]

Hi Scar..I think you will find that as you travel and visit other salles, you will get much the same experience. Everytime I have visited other places I heve felt very welcomed and have also picked up tips from other fencers and coaches. I think that fencers, with a few exceptions, are pretty nice folks that are happy to share their sport.

[Scaramouche]

Hey Event, you named yourself after what has to be the best sci-fi horror movie of all time! Whahoo! As to your question, haven't had too much of a chance to practice what I learned last Tuesday cuz I haven't been able to fence but I've been thinking about it constantly! It's like my checklist:

1. If someone's way within range, for god's sake take a step backward!
2. Parry and actually riposte.
3. There ARE other parry's besides 4, so use them!

Can't wait to be back in South Carolina Tuesday so I can put it all into practice!

[Tim McMackin]

They have a neat setup at Salle du Lion. Putting the slave boxes on the wall at each end of each strip is convenient. You can keep the lights for your strip in the corner of your eye over your opponent's shoulder the whole time. I haven't been to a lot of salles around the country; is this something a lot of clubs manage to do? At Xavier, we would love to have permanent strips and wall-mounted scoring boxes with no wires to trip over.

If they just had a little more room to spread out... It's always dangerous being a director for a tourney there (not that I have) because the strips are so close together. If you step back too far, you'll be on the next strip. And fleching is pretty tricky because you're sure to wind up on somebody else's strip.