Vehklemine

My coach was right: sabre is boring.

I thought the fact that it involved more sideways movement than foil or épée would make it a nice flourishy thing, with elaborate movements and blocks. Not so much.

I watched some clips from the world cup on YouTube the otherday, and basically the sabre stuff was just a bunch of blokes hitting each other on the head with sticks before shouting "howzaaaaat!" at the ref.

The world champion épée matches had a kind of boxing-meets-tennis grace to them, but the sabre was more an exercise in controlled collision. Boring collisions at that.

I have a fencing coach now, by the way. I may have mentioned before that I was going to try fencing this year. Last year I noticed that the local fencing club had actually brought in a recognisable starting point by way of a beginners' class, so I signed up.

I'm about four weeks into the eight week course, and I've caught the bug.

I've got fencing on the brain, these days. I'm practising my footwork and trying to build up arm strength with the help of a baseball bat (bought back when I thought I might be interested in baseball - turns out I'm more interested in not being hit by a really hard ball moving quite quickly). I'm pouring over websites, watching YouTube clips and wondering if I can squeeze in a visit to the only actual shop in Australia that sells fencing gear the next time I'm in Sydney.

All this, and I haven't even had the opportunity to "play" yet. So far I've progressed to attacking a target hung on a wall.

Still, there's an extent to which I've been vaguely interested in fencing for years.

I remember seeing the university fencing club practising way back when I was a kid. My mother had dragged me along to campus to work in the computer labs, and these people dressed in white were mucking about with swords on the lawn. I couldn't stay to watch - my mother had places to be and things to do - but in the back of my mind I've always thought "I'd like to try that".

Then, of course, the university club promptly folded and wasn't replaced. There was no fencing in town at all for a very long time. I tried going along to the local historical re-enactment club to learn the art of mucking about with swords from them, but baulked at the idea of making my own equipment. I considered taking up one of the Asian-style martial arts that involved swords, but quite frankly my levels of motivation weren't up to getting me off the couch and into a dojo.

A new fencing club started up a couple of years ago, and I finally dragged myself in to take a look. I wasn't sure, at the time, if I wanted to take up fencing or something else, and they didn't have an equipment loan scheme at the time, so I thought I'd give it a miss. Now that they actually have a beginners' course and equipment for cheap hire, investing in an eight week course seemed like a safe thing to do...

Let's just say I'm feeling inclined to keep mucking about with swords.

Besides, it seems kind of cool to be able to use the words "my fencing coach says..."