I’ve found a fencing club!  And it meets today…so I’ll report back tomorrow.  It’s cheap, too!(happy dance) And the instructor says that ballet is an EXCELLENT preparation for fencing – that old manuals use ballet terminology to describe movements.  (See mom, you did a good thing.) Continue reading Fencing club found!

  I stumbled on this, walking back to camp one day.  "Hmm, that looks like a rapier melee, waiting to happen."  And it was.  This is the Trimaris side.  Can you see (click to enlarge) the crowns, sitting on the hill, upper right?  And mid-distance is somebody else, and I think there may be a third faction in the far background. However, once they got started, it was clear that a rapier melee is a footrace with funny clothes.  First, you have to run down to the action. (I’m safely behind the waterbearers, there.) Then, once you get poked to … Continue reading GW: Fencing Melees

I happened upon the following theatrical lesson at the end of the day.  This young boy was learning that you protect your neck by thinking of his sword as a pendulum on a clock, suspended from the tip, to block your opponent’s blade.  Let the sword swing right… …then left… And you protect your legs by thinking of the sword like a golf club…swing right… And your shoulders from an overhead assault with a held block! which then you could, slide down your opponent’s blade, catch his guard, and ram your hilt into her gut!  (Wish I’d gotten a picture … Continue reading Renn Faire Show Fencing

"Salle Mcafee" I spoke to Douglas Rusinko about the group that he instructs, and he gave me some direction, and also some information about how to get more instruction.  Turns out they meet three times a week, and some of their accomplished member-officers give lessons on the side.  Also Douglas does demos in a restaurant in Destin, Captain Kidd’s Seafood Buffet, which he encouraged me to turn up at. I also chatted up a couple of female fencers who were strutting around in very nice SCAdian doublets and feathered hats.  I picked them out as SCAdians not only by the … Continue reading UWF Fencing Club and Mobile Pirates

This is a new category – but not the last, by any means!  (I have SO many interests…) I am not sure what gave me the idea that fencing was not only cool (self-evident, really!) but something that I should try.  I know I was taken along to watch my uncle Tom teach fencing in the Cleveland area when I was a small child.  I recently found out my aunt Amanda (other side of family) competed in fencing while in college, and she’s also a ballet-trained dancer, like me.  I was Very Impressed by the femme fatale that Madonna played … Continue reading Fencing