Fencing Follies

[Foil Girl]

Hey, this morning, when joking around with my family, I did a fake-punch thing (at air, noone in range, thankfully), and I ended up lunging with my punch-much to my suprise-without thinking! Anything like that ever happened to you guys because of fencing? I guess it's really been drilled into me (extend, THEN lunge)!

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-Foil Girl
"If you don't have fun, you've already lost"

[Rick]

One time, I had a ketchup stain on my slacks which a co-worker pointed out. It was just above my knee. When he extended his arm with a pointed finger towards that direction, I pulled my knee back and went tip-toe with my torso leaning forward... a leg displacement (Epee move) my coach would've been proud of. Problem was... we were in the office... and coach wasn't anywhere nearby to see it. But my co-workers did... blank stares followed. Good thing I caught myself before I extended my arm to try and touche his wrist. It would've been much harder to explain that on top of the displacement.

[Purple Fencer]

When I have to touch the start key on our fax at work, I habitually make a long out of it, since it's a medium distance from my desk, and to the right of me.

Several years back, I caught the garter at a friend's wedding (she ended up being our maid of honor at my own wedding...and my fiance - now wife - caught the bouquet! FiX! Fix!). There's actually a picture of me reaching out for the garter...in a rather nice lunge!


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I'll be mellow when I'm
DEAD!

[arcon]

[ 10-19-2001: Message edited by: arcon ]

[davidwating_64]

well at the last school dance.. i realized i was keeping distance from my partner.. i felt incredibly intelligent

[Mengarath the Dragon]

Doing a parry four and retreat when the person giving the presentation aims his pointer at you. Althought the retreat looses its effectiveness when you are seated and back your chair into the person behind you.

Turing sideways and advancing when you squeeze by someone in a tight space and they stop to stare.

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Mengarath the Dragon

Life is too short to be ordinary.

[saberkid]

yeah me and my firneds were playing cards and part of the game is to slap the card befor they do and i got it and i automaticly said CHOW-WOW it was kinda funny or ppl give you a high five and when they hit your hand you hit them back (perrey repost)

or fence left handed and sometimes you try to perrey 5 with your right hand... OUCH

[sabreuse]

Oh yeah, saberkid. The old "hand parry". That's the reason I'm currently taking a 2-week hiatus from fencing, except it was on my weapon hand.

[Gav]

My girlfriend hates it when I find some new technique (usually from a lesson). I can wlak around for a couple of days constantly going over the action in my head. Sometimes I "think" aloud and find myself doing the action!!! Weird!

[weezelbit]

Coming back from a tourn. once, I was asleep on the plane. I parried fine, but I woke up when the riposte/lunge took me into the back of the seat in front of me.

Both my parents fenced years ago. I once heard a story about one of the older fencers they knew. He was a bar tender and was walking back home one night in a bad part of town. He had an ice pick (for breaking up ice - not the kind for mountain climbing) over his shoulder and was carrying a sack on it. Someone jumped out in front of him and demanded his money. Instinctually he dropped the sack, put point in line and lunged. The tip hit on target and went right through the attacker's shoulder. And that was that.

My coach backed into a post once while we were doing footwork.

Talk about awareness. -_-

And one girl broke a light with her foil. Don't ask me how.. I was fencing, and then I heard this shattering sound across the room and saw glass raining from the lights.

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I AM FENCING GOD! Wait. You're atheist? D'oh.

[Mengarath the Dragon]

That happened once in my club. We had suspended florecent lights. It was the most amazing thing when one of the guys broke one. A flash of light and white glass raining down everywhere. We did get a funny picture of him in full fencing gear including mask using a vaccuum cleaner on the strip to get the little peices.

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Mengarath the Dragon

Life is too short to be ordinary.

[Purple Fencer]

Originally posted by Mengarath the Dragon:
That happened once in my club. We had suspended florecent lights. It was the most amazing thing when one of the guys broke one. A flash of light and white glass raining down everywhere. We did get a funny picture of him in full fencing gear including mask using a vaccuum cleaner on the strip to get the little peices.

It happens at SwordPlay all the time. One of my teammates even busted a bulb on his SALUTE!

he didn;t live that one down for weeks

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Sam Signorelli -- I'll be mellow when I'm
DEAD!

[flik]

At a demo a few years back the Pres and VP were fencing epee quite energetically. Unfortunately they weren't too coordinated (possibly hung-over from the night b4) - one of them tripped and ended up doing a diving shoulder role coming right back up en garde... in proper distance.

[Shadow Fencer]

This is a little bit off the intent of the topic, but it seems to fall into the category in general of fencing follies. The other night at practice, we were setting up the electric box and the fencers were connected and it's time to test weapons before starting the bout. Well, one light kept registering white/red. We (about 6 of us) were trying to figure out what the problem was. The the coach comes by, looks at us, looks at the box, fiddles around with the cords and then says "Where's the black thing?" We all look at each other with the expression of, what black thing? and someone holds up a black plastic part and hands it to the coach, who removes the very loose red plastic cover and places the "black thing" over the bulbs and says:"that should fix it", with a big grin. Then we all stare at each other in disbelief and burst out laughing!!! It was very funny at the time... guess you had to be there.

[Mergs]

Variation on the light bulb thing.

Guy was waiting to fence saber (go figure!), so being the bored individual he was, reaches up and taps the metal frame of the glass basketball backboard. POW! the entire thing shatters!!! Would not have believed it if I hadn't been there to see it. Down side was that the incident got us thrown out of the facility.

[HilandDoug]

While throwing darts, I did a fleche and hit the bullseye, but crossed the line for a foul. Since it was electric pub darts, I got away with it.

[Peach]

I'm an elementary school teacher and sabre fencer; one of my colleagues at work is an epeeist I knew from the club before he started. We're always hand-fencing and it really weirds everybody out when he pokes me in the ribs and I scream and hit him (I'm a middle-aged lady in reading glasses and he's a foot taller than I am).

[chilli]

More under the definition amusing anecdote:

I had my 7 yr old neice under my care and *gasp* it was my fencing night. She was quite excited and enjoyed watching our practice. We were on our way out the door when she stopped short and said we couldn't leave yet. I asked her why and she replied " I've been promised - a treat, of pears and toast."

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Chilli ~((((>

[mangofever]

i've never done anything like it