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Fencing

Fencing - The Sport

Don't you bloody dare! The next person who makes a joke about wire and posts will have fifty metres of barbed wire shoved up their fundamental orifice and slowly heated until white-hot! It's amazing how many people think that they're the first one to ever think of the joke!

I feel better now.

The art of fencing is that of hitting some other guy (or girl) with a pointy piece of metal and avoiding getting hit yourself. The weapons used are the foil, epee and sabre. Foil fencing consists of point attacks on the torso of the body with a light, flexible weapon. Epee is similar, but with the whole body as target area and a heavier weapon. Sabre, the cutting weapon, has the whole upper body - including head and arms - as target.

Australia doesn't really have the history of swordsmanship (bugger off, feminists!) that most European countries have. By the time Australia was colonised, gunpowder had removed the necessity for people to be able to defend themselves with the blade. As a consequence, fencing as a sport is not what one'd call huge here. But we're working on that.

My History as a Fencer

I first experienced the sport in 1994 when I was a student at Brisbane Grammar School where I learnt the very basics before being told to "hit the other guy with the pointy end."¹ Having decided that there must be a little more to it than that, I started searching for other information and instruction.

I initially taught myself out of a book², which proved both a help and a hindrance. The techniques were easy to learn and execute in isolation but difficult to employ under pressure in a bout.

My first introduction to Maitre d'Armes Michael O'Brien was at a training camp I attended in mid 1994. A member of the Academie D'Armes Internationale and a former Australian Olympic Coach, Mike has trained more national champions than any other coach in the country to date. He's 77 (2004) and still placed 4th in the State Championships not so long ago. (Kinda ironic that I knocked him out, huh? Still, the score was 13-12 in my favour at full time.) Mike is responsible for pretty much all of my development as a fencer, and the fault is entirely mine in lack of time that I have not rewarded his efforts with national-level results.

Stuff I Do

I coached at Brisbane Girls' Grammar School. It's a small club, but it's fun, I guess. That must be why I did it, 'cause the money certainly wasn't great! I also coached at the University of Queensland, Christian Outreach College and assisted my maitre at the Gold Coast PCYC.

I'm currently coaching at Chevaliers.

Other Fencing Stuff

Yes, I'll admit it. They conned me into it. So what? I was the Secretary for the QLD Amateur Fencing Assocation Inc., which is the governing body of fencing in - surprise! - Queensland, Australia. Thankfully I'm not the Secretary any more; now I just run the web site.

2004 update: Oh, sod. I'm on the Executive again. More work...

1. The person who said that knows who they are. And so does any other Grammar fencer. 'Nuff said.
2. Nadi, Aldo On Fencing, 1945 or thereabouts. If you can find it, good luck. Have a look for his The Living Sword while you're at it, but it's supposedly permanently out of print.

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