Funny or Unique Fencing Stories

[HilandDoug]

John Riddle started a similar post that turned into a flame war, and seems it was deleted (and rightly so). I would like to start another string so we can share stories of a humourous or weird or unique vein. So anyone got a story?

[flik]

My first two months of fencing were spent fencing a particular women (henceforth known as the Goddess of Masculin Discomfort) She had the horrible habit of lunging with her point down by your ankle and then flicking it upward to try to correct this. She nailed you right in the balls every time! I lost count of the number of times I ended up on the floor!
She was apparently the reincarnation of a previous U of R fencer. The previous Goddess of Pain had much better point control though - she reportedly kept pinning one fencer's left testical to his back leg... I believe they had previously dated, but I can't confirm that...

[HilandDoug]

Ouch! That sort of reminds me of the story I was going to post on the previous string. Back in the dry sabre days, my friend Mike and I went to a tournament at Oakland U. in Rochester, Michigan. Mike had just gotten his black belt in Ishin-Ryu katare, and was fencing with a few injuries. One of the guys in his pool heard us talking about how banged up Mike was from his black belt testing, and apparently only heard the "banged up" part, and not the "black belt" part, of the conversation. So Mike is on the strip with this guy as the first bout of the pool, and after a few feeling out maneuvers, the guy fleches (ah, the good ole days) at Mike's head, misses high, and delivers his bellguard to Mike's face. (This is the incident Moonitic was referring to in the earlier string.) I was touch judging, and said, "No touch," which pissed the guy off, while Mike asked for permission to remove his mask. He had been hit so hard, his mask skinned his nose, which had blood seeping to the surface of the skin, and jammed his adam's apple into his neck. Mike asked the referee if he was going to give a card for brutality, and the ref just shrugged. His opponent didn't realize it at the time, but "no card" meant Mike was now free to seek revenge! Back before we had to have sewn in bibs, the snap in bibs left a small area on the side of the neck exposed. Mike had exceptional point control, and put it to work. Mike's next action was a cut to that quarter inch of unprotected neck. His opponent acknowledged the touch involuntarily, with an "OUCH!" and a hand to his neck. The next touch was to the other side of the neck, followed by two cuts to the thigh for no touch, and the bout finished with two more to the neck. When the bout ended, the guy stopmed off the strip with no handshake, his free hand on his neck. Mike's only comment was, "If he'd apologized for the bellguard to the face, or gotten a card for it, I wouldn't have felt the need to get him back." I later saw the guy complaining to his girlfriend, who had taken some ice from a cooler and was applying it to his neck, that his idea of "bellguard to the face" to intimidate his opponents, might not be such a good idea after all. So that confirmed it- it was intentional, and he deserved every welt Mike gave him.

[flik]

Why is it martial artists always seem to pop up in fencing stories?
One previous member of my club, Sean, had just finished testing for a belt in Tai Kwon Do (I probably spelled that wrong and I'm not sure of tbe belt). At practice one day an opponent decided to fleche him... this guy first found himself in a headlock, followed by him flying through the air and caught up in some uncomfortable hold! This happened before my time, but I would've given ANYTHING to see this happen!

hmmm flick, So tell us what is this fencers name.

[flik]

Neither of the two fencers is me, Eli, if that's what you're wondering. As I said, that was before my time here. Sean was old when I was a freshman and all but stopped fencing after that.
My screen name "Flik" has nothing to do with a flick... it's left over from when I played soccer and a shortened form of my last name (Steflik). I also do not flick... when I started doing flicks in foil I figured I'd better get my sorry *** over to epee before I started to like them! They have their place in modern fencing, but I guess there's too much of a classical fencer in me - I just don't like them.

[Moonitic]

Hi again, fencing family! We closed on house #1 today, & I'm finally getting some breathing room. Whew!

Stratford was awesome (I don't know if I mentioned that I was going or not). 19 sword fights in Three Musketeers. I was drooling!

Anyway, funny fencing stories? Sheesh...there are so many. Some of them involve me. Most recently, I was bouting with my little bro's fiancee. I was pushing her off the end of the strip, & she knew it. With one foot on, & one foot up in the air (I didn't know her foot could go that high!) she tried to gain her balance before I got the touch (a dazzling display of dance moves on her part). It was too late, & both of us crumpled to the ground, laughing. I wish we had a video camera for that one.

[sabreuse]

A guy in our club tore some ligaments or something in his right elbow and was trying to fence left-handed to rest his right arm. He did OK until he tried to lunge. He kept sort of doing a right-handed lunge from the left-handed position, extending his front (left) leg and putting his weight over his back (right) leg. This motion, of course, had the effect of moving him and his weapon quickly AWAY from the the other fencer for the attack. I pointed out that he looked like the "Keep on Trucking" guy. After that, no one could fence him without laughing, even when he wasn't trying to lunge.

[Dennis Crews]

This last Monday, I went to a newly discovered club. It was almost exclusively epee. The lesson of the night was double's.

Well...when the bouts started, the first two guys did *nothing* except circular motions. Pretty much just doing the most recent drill back and forth at each other.

The instructor was apoplectic about all the missed openings to the weapon arm(one guy was pretty new, and his circles were a bit wide, and stiff-armed). At that point, I leaned over as said to him..."Look on the bright side, at least your lesson carried over to the bouts."
At that point, he just slumped in a chair and started shaking his head.

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Tell me again what the pointy end is for...

[arcon]

[ 10-23-2001: Message edited by: arcon ]

[Nous]

The funniest thing happened unfortunately to someone I was fencing. We were messing around with epee and flexidagger (think main gauche w/sabre grip) I lunged on a cross advance just when rocko started to fleche just before my epee hit him in the chest he deflected it with his daggr in his offhand, but not quite low enough. As he rolled on the ground I asked him if he was alright, his reply "do I look alright? you stretched my left nut down to my knee!" he was more than a little miffed when I started laughing at that comment and it was a long time before he would fence me in epee.

[arcon]

[ 10-23-2001: Message edited by: arcon ]

[Mengarath the Dragon]

How about a fencer with a classic yellow smiley face painted on his mask and a fencing outfit intentionally dyed light blue, all the way down to the socks? Watching isn't so bad, but when you get up there and face that happy yellow face, it's a different story entirely.

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Mengarath the Dragon

Life is to short to be ordinary.

[ReticMaster]

I had more then one funny thing happen to me on the strip. One time, my club was have a contest, it was my turn. I went up and I forgot to put on my body cord on. I had to take of my jaket to put on the body cord. The ather tim I forgot my mask. One time I grab the wrong wepon. It epee and I grab the foil. One time I fell down in front of evry body.

[Moonitic]

Yesterday at the first tourney of the year, someone made the "first disaster of the year". He did a fleche against a friend of mine & ended up face down on the strip. I didn't see it...but what a sight it must have been!

[ladybug]

The funniest thing I've ever seen is 3 guys gathered around a fencer for 5 minutes trying to figure out why his weapon wasn't working on the "test", only to find out he was hooked up to the wrong reel.

[Fencing DilberT]

Last week I was in a bout against a guy I can't beat but I usually get a couple in on him, I had already lost 8-0 to him eariler in the night and was down something like 5-0. I just couldn't land anything. My coach comes up to me and asks to see my weapon, a club foil, he starts laughing at me and tell me it's a child foil and about 3 inches shorter than an adult's foil! Needless to say I got the right one the next time.

[robbie]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Thanks Dilbert!!! (still laughing!)
Made my day! Shoot! My week!

[Archangel]

One of my old coaches was also a distance runner back in his high school days. The day after running his first marathon in twenty years he was showing us a drill and the first lunge he went into he found that he couldn't get out of. We had to gently lower him to the ground and help him stretch. He is remarkably cocky and it took us ten minutes to get the confession out of him.

[scarlet_woman156k]

We were fencing at a tournament, and my coach, who also fenced, was involved in an epee bout when he lost balance as he was retreating. To regain balance, he actually did a back flip...YES, with body cord and all! He landed right on his feet. His opponent was very surprised...no doubt. We were all laughing and he just shrugged his shoulders and smiled through his mask.

It was great.


scarlet.