Dear Instructor: Welcome to Week 5. Last week, your students should have learned how to use disengages as Attackers on the March. Disengages are excellent techniques for finishing the attack; I usually advise students to replace direct attacks with disengages in all situations once they are comfortable with the latter. Disengages are a “hedged” move: … More Week 5: Defensive Sweeps
Dear Instructor: Welcome to Week 4. By this stage, your students should be able to fence and referee a complete bout. They can fight in the 4m zone and outside, whether on the March with priority, or on Defence without. This class is about Attackers using disengages to defeat a Defender using parries. Last week, … More Week 4: Disengage
Sydney Sabre has gone into hibernation. We started preparing for this a month or so ago, when the first reports of COVID-19 escaping Wuhan hit the news. Initially, we hoped to be lucky – Australia is the lucky country – and catch the incoming cases as they were detected, like Taiwan or Singapore or Hong … More Waratah
Back in 2013 when we were just starting out, an acquaintance of ours in Korea sent us a (now sadly defunct) video link of a national tournament, in which some enormous fencer in unmarked gear was mauling the bejeesus out of Kim Junghwan. “Who the heck is that?” we asked. “He is high school student! … More Flash
It hasn’t come up before, but some years ago I was a fairly serious amateur cellist. When you’re a cellist, and you hear that Pieter Wispelway is playing the complete Bach Cello Suites in your home town, you go. The six suites are the cornerstone repertoire for the instrument, and playing the whole thing in one … More The Pursuit of Imperfection