Last Thursday I went to my first fencing class. It was fun! My left leg was incredibly sore the next day.
The class is held at the back of SPARC, OES's athletic facility, so it was a bit of an adventure even finding the place. Then I was worried that I'd be the only adult -- the only other students I saw arriving were teenage boys -- fortunately, other adults showed up when the class began.
The instructor, Ed, was on the Polish national team and is currently one of the top fencers internationally, in his age division. He wasn't able to compete in the championships this year because he was at the Olympics with his students. I'd say that's a fair excuse.
I don't know how big a deal was made of it elsewhere in the country, but here in Portland it was major news that two of the three American women who swept the Saber Olympic competition were from Beaverton: U.S. women sweep Olympic fencing; Oregon woman wins bronze
Last week, we learned 4 different positions of the saber and were introduced to the rules of getting points (very complicated to me right now). We practiced lunging and advancing -- no wonder my leg and foot hurt so much! We also played with the saber -- different strength, balance, and agility games, like seeing how far you can flick a glove off the end of the blade. Next class we'll don those masks and face off against each other, I think. Scary.
Hamlet abridged
17 years ago
2 comments:
No epee and foil? At whitman we learned foil, with a few people wanted to do epee. Mostly renaissance people did saber.
A few years ago, Oregon Fencing Alliance chose to focus solely on saber so they could excel in that area. I'm learning what I really want is probably a class in stage swordfighting. :) I'm hoping to learn enough saber here to be able to go to a Ren Faire as a pirate lass, if I should ever feel the urge.
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