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For the last few weeks, Kian Ryan has been coming down from Bolton to Brighton every other week, to meet with a current client of his. Since these meetings take place in the latter half of the week, he's been coming along to the fencing club's team training sessions, and since he's a qualified coach, we've been making him work.
Last night, he made us work in return.
I still ache this morning from all the point-control training, parry-selection, core-stability exercises and footwork he took us through (the short, medium, and er... long lunges were particularly memorable). I haven't worked that hard or continuously in a training session for a long time: due to a chronic shortage of coach-hours, we're used to having the coach bring the beginners up to a basic standard, then release them to us, where free-fencing teaches them the rest. Of course, free-fencing doesn't teach them the rest, and it doesn't really teach us anything. That's not to say that our coach is bad, just that there's not enough of her for the thirty-five-odd fencers she has to work with on Tuesdays. Which makes the Thursday sessions all the more valuable.
Kian gave me a quick one-to-one lesson at the end of the session, which only underscores how much I still have to learn before I move from being an adequate fencer to a good one. You see, in Epee, there is no priority. In Foil and Sabre, one must seize priority (by extending the sword arm) before attacking. If you don't have priority, you won't score, and in cases of hits occurring together, priority is used to break the 'tie'. In epee, one can hit at any time (doubles count as a point both ways). However, as Kian taught me, the lack of 'scoring priority' does not mean there's no priority or rhythm to the attack. It's gonna take a little more training before I fully understand, I think, but the idea of being able to change tempo as well as distance, stance and blade position during a bout is interesting. It's relatively obvious, but until you think about it, it isn't. Which is the problem I'm having while fencing at the moment: I'm spending so much time on the armoury, and on training the incoming newbies, that I've stopped thinking about how I fence and just trying to do it all from memory, without analysis or planning. This has to change.
So, I shall be training some new armourers to take some of the load off me and Fouad, in the hopes that it gives us the opportunity for more time on piste. Here's hoping...
Oh, almost forgot. There was a NaNoWriMo meet on wednesday. Despite no longer realistically expecting to make wordcount, because my life is just too hectic at the moment, I turned up and met some new folk, which was nice. I was entirely manic for about three hours, then spent most of the next day crashing back and wanting to hide from reality. First bit good, second, not so much. A little regulation and balance may be a good idea next time.