2005: A Fencer Revived

[Izulde]

It's been about seven years since I last fenced, but tonight, I plan on resuming my competitive fencing career here at Wyoming. First practice is in about 35 minutes. More updates and details to come then.

[Izulde]

Whew! Feeling a little sore in the knees after that. Two hours of being in en garde position after not having been in it much for seven years (I used to occasionally practice advance and retreat in my spare time) really takes a toll on the legs.

A ton of new people signed up including me, so we spent the session going over the basics... advance, retreat, lunge, parry-4, parry-6, and parry riposte. The advanced fencers could tell I'd been in the sport and then been out for a while because I had a tendency to lean my front knee forward too much on the lunges... it's a common trait and one that can unfortunately lead to blowing out your knee. Then again, I hate lunges anyway.

Most of the stuff it took me a few times of doing it, but then everything started clicking again and it was like I never left. In the practice bouts we did at the end, I held my own against this guy who was a lot taller than me and who had a lot longer reach, who'd also fenced both before, and totally whipped this other guy who was pretty new to the sport and kept leaving himself too open for me.

And this, I might add, was with foil, the weapon they start beginners off with and the one I absolutely hate. But I did well enough and remembered enough that I'm going to be jumping into the tournament right away on Saturday. I'll probably fence epee like I used to, but I'm going to see if I can learn sabre well enough in two hours on Friday to fence that in the tournament.

Oh and we have a really cute chick who just joined too, named Cody. I may ask her to the Sigma Chi formal that's next Wed. night.

[Izulde]

This morning isn't too bad, relatively speaking. I thought I'd be really stiff and sore, but it's fairly minimal.

I also figured back flareup problems woul be what kept me from fencing effectively, but it may turn out to be my knees I have to keep an eye on instead. Either way, next practice is tomorrow and then Saturday is a tournament, though I'm not sure what one, since I don't think it's a USFA tournament.

[Izulde]

Practice today was straight out of hell. I didn't loosen up as much as I did during Wednesday's stretch and I seemed a little slow on my advances and retreats during warm-ups and the round robin. I blame this on the fact that I had to break up my sleep cycle into two each of 3 hours.

The worst part came when they gave us intensive lunge work. I hate doing lunges because they aren't a natural movement for me in the least, so I usually fleche the hell out of everything.

Sadly, my favourite move is also banned from sabre, which I learned today. On the bright side though, the guy who taught me said I showed a natural talent for it. The biggest problem right now is my parry 4's. I'm using the tip rather than the whole blade, and strength is a huge part of sabre, as if you don't use enough power, then you get hit by the evil mal-pare`, where your parry is deemed to have been insufficient to break the opponent's attack, so they still get the point.

Going back to the lunges, while I sucked with them, I showed some very nice balestra movements, and of course, my fleche was damn good, as it's my primary move. So the tournament, which is actually Sunday, will have me fencing both epee and sabre. I just can't go a tournament without having the luxury of being able to fleche.

Speaking of which, we had a little mini-tournament with the people that were there today, foil only, five point bouts, and because we did it at the end of practice, we only got the first round in.

I absolutely schooled the girl I fenced, winning 5-1. I actually didn't fence as well as I could have, as I kept going for the arm, which is my natural inclination from fencing epee (where the entire body is legal target area), but I still clobbered her.

Then again, this is very typical for beginning female fencers. To a woman, they get intimidated when going up against men in a bout. It was true at Minnesota, it's true for one of my best friends, who's female, been fencing for 13 years, and who has taught other girls how to fence, and it proved true again today in Wyoming, where the female-male bouts in Round 1 finished with the following scores: 5-1, 5-1, 5-0, the man winning each time.

But that's not to say the girls sucked. Far from it. The girl I fenced had some really nice riposte moves against me, though unfortunately for her, most were off target foilwise. Cody, who I've got a small crush on, had some really nice attacks too (she was the other 5-1 score).

Cody I think could turn out to be pretty good at epee. The other girl I could see staying at foil and turning out to be okay.

As for me, I'm not sure yet. We'll see how things develop starting with Sunday's tournament in Denver.

If there's any FOFCers in Denver, maybe you could meet me there.