Another pretty good night of fencing. I tried different shoes for footwork (my old gray new balance gym shoes, which are basically running shoes) and they were awful. I think I'll try some fencing shoes, or something similar like squash shoes. In footwork, we practiced some moves based on taking a half step as a feint, then backing off (or attacking). You do a little head-fake or maybe an extend with the half step forward to make it convincing. I'm trying to use the half-step (in either direction) to mess with distance and open an attack.

I forget who all my bouts were against, but one was against Alec, who killed me last time we fenced. He's a big imposing guy, and he would chase me down the strip, daring me to try and take his blade, then he'd disengage and hit me. This time, I used my newfound lessons (and confidence) and would back up, then at the right moment tap his blade to take right-of-way and attack, or step in and take his blade. a few times I just counterattacked and managed to land. He still got more of those points than I did (and won our bout 5-3), but I forced him to rethink his attack. Then I fenced Laren, who destroyed me, though I had a few good moments.

So, I haven't really been writing about my new hobby (or old hobby -- I fenced foil and saber for a couple years when I was about 10-12 and took it up again this past october). But I think I'm going to start trying to post about it, mostly so I can track myself a bit.

Tonight was a good night, which was nice because last week was pretty bad; both nights last week my shins hurt too much for me to finish footwork, and I was pretty low-energy for my bouts. Monday I actually think I was dehydrated and had to stop before I passed out. Anyway, tonight we did a little tournament, to rank people for the men's foil team, but all men were invited to join in.
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