H meaning "holiday", meaning two whole weeks where I don't need to come in to work.
I'm thinking that there might be a few hours of pure sleep wrapped up in there somewhere... feel like I'm running a bit short at the moment!
Waaaaaaay too much stuff to do before tomorrow afternoon. Don't know if I'll get it all done, but I'll have to try.
Fencing last night, again - was very wearying, due to not having been for a few weeks. Plus, fencing coach Barbara decided that instead of fencing first-to-five-point bouts, we'd fence 15-point bouts.
On top of that, Dr Trent decided that he wanted to fence epee with me, rather than foil. Normally I wouldn't mind, but the extra weapon weight made a difference last night. The muscles between my thumb & index finger are letting me know all about it today! Not to mention the arm & leg muscles - just under-used lately, I think. Must fix that, so it doesn't hurt so much next time!
After our brief holiday, Anthea has another appointment at the specialist to check out how her finger is going. We should be getting back to our regular gym visits in a week or so, although I think perhaps Anf wont be getting back into the boxing any time soon!
Actually, that reminds me of a story Trent told us last night - about a guy who had dislocated his thumb playing football. When the emergency room folks were going to put it back in, he said "Oh, no, I'm in the army, I'm tough, I don't need any anaesthetic!"
Thirty seconds later, after he'd gone successively white, then green, then thrown up, he decided he might have been mistaken.
Anyway.
Work calls. :-(
Showing posts with label fencing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fencing. Show all posts
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Friday, April 4, 2008
Some things bear repeating...
This, I posted as a comment over at Dan's blog, in response to a post talking about kendo, and how you must not think of hitting someone, but just hit them:
It's oh so very true. Every now and then at fencing, I've found myself there. My opponent attacks, and a few seconds (or fractions thereof) later, I find myself standing with my point on their chest, and mentally replaying the previous moments in time to figure out what it was that just happened. And when I say "fractions thereof", it can really be that. Watch an olympic fencing bout sometime (or a world championship bout, like this one from 2006). Fast, eh? Sometimes there are a few seconds (or minutes!) of back and forth with no-one really attacking, but when an attack starts, it's often all over very quickly.
Having fenced for about five years now (or is it six?), I'm really starting to get the hang of it - the figuring out what happened thing, that is... I still generally suck at fencing! But, while I usually forget the French terms for the actions & reactions, I can often explain to my opponent something like this:
"Quarte" is a guard position where your forearm is across your body, "counter-quarte" is a circular parry intended to move your blade beneath your opponent's and push it off-target, ending in a quarte guard position, a disengage (there's a french term for this, but I can't remember how to spell it!) is, in this case, me moving the blade out of the way before the parry makes contact.
I'm finding, these days, that when I'm "in the zone", as it were, many of my actions are "instinctive", in that I don't think through what's happening at each point in time. Occasionally (and this is the bit that makes me quite pleased with myself!) I find that between points, I think "Hey, if I do X, then my opponent does Y, which means I can then do Z and score a hit", and then it happens just like that!
Way cool.
Then I fence someone really good, and I get put in my place. :-P
It's the body language that gives you away, and you succeed in combat when you don't think, but do.
'Muscle memory', as people call it, is way faster than any thought process. Thus, we practice. And practice. And practice some more. And eventually, we think less and do more, and our opponents say "what the hell was that?"
It's a good place to be. :-)
It's oh so very true. Every now and then at fencing, I've found myself there. My opponent attacks, and a few seconds (or fractions thereof) later, I find myself standing with my point on their chest, and mentally replaying the previous moments in time to figure out what it was that just happened. And when I say "fractions thereof", it can really be that. Watch an olympic fencing bout sometime (or a world championship bout, like this one from 2006). Fast, eh? Sometimes there are a few seconds (or minutes!) of back and forth with no-one really attacking, but when an attack starts, it's often all over very quickly.
Having fenced for about five years now (or is it six?), I'm really starting to get the hang of it - the figuring out what happened thing, that is... I still generally suck at fencing! But, while I usually forget the French terms for the actions & reactions, I can often explain to my opponent something like this:
"Ok, I initially did a straight-line feint, you did a parry quarte, I disengaged, you followed with a counter-quarte, I disengaged again for the hit."
"Quarte" is a guard position where your forearm is across your body, "counter-quarte" is a circular parry intended to move your blade beneath your opponent's and push it off-target, ending in a quarte guard position, a disengage (there's a french term for this, but I can't remember how to spell it!) is, in this case, me moving the blade out of the way before the parry makes contact.
I'm finding, these days, that when I'm "in the zone", as it were, many of my actions are "instinctive", in that I don't think through what's happening at each point in time. Occasionally (and this is the bit that makes me quite pleased with myself!) I find that between points, I think "Hey, if I do X, then my opponent does Y, which means I can then do Z and score a hit", and then it happens just like that!
Way cool.
Then I fence someone really good, and I get put in my place. :-P
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