temps d'escrime

Worked all day, and knew I'd suffer a late afternoon nap.

I told Chance I wouldn't accept any of his excuses if he didn't get me up in time. We planned this daring emprise a week ago and were going to carry it out if it killed him. No one's going to tell me I'm just talk. Although that's exactly why I'm interested in fencing: to rejoin.

I had him take several pictures of me driving. I don't know why. For the following awful slide show, all about me.

driving

Now, Chance kept saying the pics were no good. All we had were our phone cams, so these are all very small. But I think he was remarking on my profile, in the car.

turning

"Here it is," he said.

I pulled in and stopped at this.

We watched aikido (stick fighting) for awhile, led by a 50-something nun and a 25 year old dood with a wild afro. She walked over and engaged us off and on, encouraging our interest, exclaiming how relaxing this can be. Men were being thrown to the ground and lightly tortured until they slapped their palm on the mat a few times. Then the arrose and bowed.

When it was nearly time for Fencing class I met this fat clown named David, who is a sword collector. He showed me all of his equipment: the eppe, foil, saber, mask, vest, jacket, mask, gloves. He asked how I became interested and I explained.

"Oh, we're an arrogant bunch." he assured me. Keen and cold. Got to have a quick wit. It's fencing, it's chauvinistic.

He began to explain right away the parts of the swords, their purpose, their history. Later in the gym, when the coach was late, three people came over to introduce themselves and each one wanted to teach me some basics, such as the stand, the parry, the four lines, 'disengagement' as attack, etc.

When they matched off and began to fight it was much too fast to follow.

I was invited to sit closer, I went to sit on the mat in the middle of the gym.

Then Mrs. Peel and her daughter appeared and I went back over to the seating area to listen to their coach. It was their third lesson.

One of the men came over then and offered me a light-feeling eppe. He had me twirl the buttoned end several times around his thumb, to show how quickly tiring such small movements can be.




At the end of the hour everyone was laughing and exhausted and dripping sweat. It's $20 a month (one hour a week), but I'll need a starter kit, which runs around $200, I'm told.

My plan is to take up swimming for a month, to get back in shape. And re-learn how to jump rope. And study some more Cyrano-script.

Thanks for visiting!