Back with a vengeance!

Home again, home again. I am glad to see the blog has over 10.500 views! It keeps me motivated to keep on blogging, so thanx a lot :)
I started training again recently, just as I thought I find it harder than I used to but it's there. Just as my coach says ''fencing is like riding a bicycle'', you can't forget it. Still I feel a bit out of touch and at the very beginning I was losing at friendly bouts and feeling depressed but it gets better over tthe weeks.
I feel out of shape too, I find my arm hurting from holding the epee after 2 hours.. just like a few months ago.. Ah well..I have to get down to it again.
Apropos here is a little exersize regime my coach put up for me quite a while ago to get me a bit fitter, it's nothing special, just an overall mini-workout. The following exercizes are done one after the other.

1. 15 Situps (  legs in the air with knees bent)
2. 10 push-ups
3. step climbing - we have a very big step at the fencing hall- I am sorry I dont know what it is called- it is wooden and has a leather cushion on top, it is almost knee-high. I step onto it with the right leg, get off it backwards and step onto it with the left leg, I count 20 step-ups.

small break

4. 10 lunges

Now once again I do all the exercizes from the beginning.

After that I do 15 mins of footwork, anything I want.
And finally a last exersize, starting from an en guard position I strech my knees slowly straight until the heel lifts off the ground and I am standing on the tips of both feet, then I go slowly down again. I repeat this 15 times, it's very good for balance and leg-strength.

By the way, there is running at the beginning as a warm-up and at the end the usual stretching-routine.

Got to go now, training beginns!
If I can't win them with my technique I will just have to buffle them with sassiness!

xx
 

random fencing vids

As I am on vacation I don't think I will be posting anything sensibel in quite a while... Training beginns in September again. In the meantime enjoy a video made by the Fencing Champion, it's my personal favourite, visit his channel for more:

A controversial fight- or the longest second ever!

                                          Heidemann and Shin scoring double hits

The second semifinal match in the women’s individual epee fencing tournament at the London Olympics between the german Britta Heidemann and her korean opponent A Lam Shin has been much discussed over the past two days.

Shin held priority with :01 remaining on the clock in overtime of a tied match, meaning she would earn a berth into the gold medal final when the clock struck zero.
Both fencers took to the piste and registered two straight simultaneous touches without any time running off the clock.
On the third instance, Heidemann registered a clean touch and the clock expired, giving her a berth into the finals.
Confused as to how the clock did not go from :01 to :00 any of the previous instances, Shin's coach ran over to the judge's table.
After 25 minutes of deliberation, the judges awarded the match to Heidemann. After hearing of the decision, Shin remained sitting on the piste with her head in her hands.

(Source: http://www.nbcolympics.com/news-blogs/fencing/controversial-ending-in-second-semifinal-of-womens-epee.html)

You can see the last hits here:

It΄s quite shocking and amazing, I sympathize with the Korean though, the time should have stopped and so Heidemann wouldn't be given extra time.

Nevertheless it reminds of what my coach has told me to fight for every touch...

Guardian's humouristic video of the bout:

The olympic games have begun!

The biggest athletic event begun yesterday - I am a bit late in posting as I am on vacation :)
As for fencing schedule and results see here: http://www.london2012.com/fencing/

Live streaming links:
http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/london2012/index.html (the official site)
http://www.nbcolympics.com/fencing/index.html (only USA)
http://olympia.ard.de/apps/java/london2012/liveplayer/index.html(only Germany)

Best of luck to the greek saberfencer Vasso Vougiouka!

The European Fencing Championship 2012 Legnano

The official site:
http://www.legnano2012.eu/

To watch the championship online visit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gDdyi87JdG4

You can watch the the first part of the championship uploaded here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxaNUO1reMk&feature=plcp

more fencing and fashion

the first fencing-inspired-fashion post has hundreds of views so here is one more especially for the female public of the blog ;)

On Fencing Competitions

As one of my club's coaches said ''fencing without participating in competitions, is like a soup without salt''. So the time has come to put my fencing skills to the test, early in June specifically. I am already stressed, it's different fencing the same members at the club to fencing total strangers (which are definately of a higher level than I am). But anyway I think it will be a great experience and if I can pass the first round I will be more than happy. I will be joining an individual event. For individual events there are one or two seeding rounds (poules) followed by direct elimination rounds, sometimes with repechage. (see wiki for more info)

A few infos on official comps:

• Given that you have a fencing pass, you need to pay a fee to enter the competition and register yourself.
• Make sure your equipment meets the standards of the competition.
• When you enter the competition your name will be called out when it's your turn to fence. The first person to hear their name takes place on the right of the referee.
• When a leftie is competing he is always on the left side no matter whose name is called first.
• First you salute your opponent and then the ref.
• The ref is always right, don't try and contradict him. If you must, ask him in a polite way why he made that decision.
• For inapropriate behaviour you can get a warning-yellow card (e.g. when you take the mask off without the ref allowing it), a red card (e.g. if you are being brutal) or if you let the opponent win on purpose, and finally a black card which means your exclusion from the competition (e.g. if you change the equipment in some way in order to win, if you don't salute your opponent, if you don't turn up after your name has been called out thrice)
• The new rules dictate that you salute your opponent at the end of the bout as well and then you shake hands.

Complete list of penalties here: http://www.britishfencing.com/uploads/files/penalty_sheet_2012.pdf

fencing student's guide

...that I found snooping around http://fencing.calpoly.edu/Documentation/lessons/alouie1.pdf
It explains a lot of basic things, like what a student should learn and in what order. It's all very nicely explained so that you know what to expect from your coach/club.

                                                                                              me

Trip to Tauber

Just a few fotos from the biggest fencing centre in Europe in tauberbischofsheim, where I went today to watch the german nationals. It was a great experience!

I thought Tauberbischofsheim was a city..but it's actually a small village!

Entering...

It has 3 main fencing halls and one for the finals (see further down).

London calling!

 

The finals hall.

And yes- a fencer's pizza -you can cut it using your saber/epee/foil -no just kidding!

My artwork- silver fencing jewellery

It all started when I thought it would be great to wear a fencing pin but I figured it's very hard to get one, so I thought why not make my own as I am a hobby-jeweller. And here it is!

My lunging epeeist!

The pin was a great success among my fencing friends and I made some more. They are all handmade in sterling silver 925.

My second design is the following, in a salute position:

This one is larger than the previous-about twice the size.

If you are interested you can contact me for orders and details here or at blackrose_86@hotmail.com

errr happy fencing easter!

As I am on easter vacation again away from my town I don't have many fencing news. Fenced again yesterday at my home town-club. Did lots of bad fleches where my epee went straight passed the opponent giving them easy points... uff... Suffice to say that I lost 6-10 to an overweight 40 year old mum! Then I won 10-9 to a girl that has been fencing for 6 years, so that boosted my self-esteem again a bit. All in all I did badly though, I parried a lot of her lunges without reposting and played more defensively than ever. I wasn't so confident so I let a lot of good moments pass and that is really irritating!

I got corrected by a very good coach recently on many technical things but I am sure I will make the same mistakes again unless I get repeatedly corrected upon them ( shifting my weight to the back leg, keeping the shoulder high up, leaning forwards while lunging, not doing an explosive enough attack). It is all nice in theory but when it comes to doing it I am not self-aware enough  to correct myself.

Anyway, I am currently working on some fencing jewellery! I will upload fotos shortly!!!

Free fencing magazines online

You can download and read all FIE's official magazine issues ESCRIME as PDF files.

This is the latest:  issue: ete/2011 

you can also download Escrime XXI as  a new free application for ipad!!!

http://appfinder.lisisoft.com/app/escrime-xxl.html

Fencing babies!

coaching videos

I stumbled upon the youtube channel of Adam Blight the other day: http://www.youtube.com/user/AdamBlight. It has some very nice sessions with his athlete, the current British Men’s Foil Champion Husayn Rosowsky that made me green with envy!
Just a sample here of foil:

and epee                                                                                                                      

                 

Watching other people fence has helped me a lot. I don't have the chance to have a long one-to-one lesson with a coach and even then the amount of things they can show me are limited, so I try to copy things from videos and practice them during bouts on more inexperienced opponents.

Foiling around...

                                                            naturally born fencer!


The news is I have decided to take up foil just to have a chance to practice more and enhance my fencing generally- but my heart belongs to epee <3 .So I picked up a foil down at the club yesterday, waved it around and poked people at various off-target places. Appart from that I did quite well - I regard losing 10-6 to a foilist as doing well.
The first difference I noticed is how much lighter the foil feltto the hand, much easier to manipulate.
The second is how quicker people moved - competing against them will do my epee speed good.
The right-of-way thing was vastly annoying. But one thing it can teach me is dealing with the opponents blade first before attacking. Double hits and no point awarded was also annoying. Appart from the rule-difficulties it was fun. I can't wait to have a one to one lesson with the italian coach!

fencing meme

it's my first attempt to do anything of the like! So I hope you like it!

Losing sucks...

Last night was awful. I fought a lot of bouts and only won in two. Losing from active members was normal but losing from a newbie- that really brought me down. She just kept coming at me with a dead straight epee attack and touched me! What the hell happened to my parries? Maybe I should go fence these people:

And then I was having such counterproductive thoughts:

What if fencing is not for me? What if no matter how much I train I will never be good enough?

Or maybe this awful feeling is exactly the motivation I need to do better.

I don't want to be just a fencing enthusiast, I want to be good, I want to win.

DO OR DO NOT, THERE IS NO TRY!

Attack is the best form of defence!

And that truism applies to fencing too. I have been reading a german fencing guide for young athletes and I find it very easy to understand. So I thought I'd share the simple wisdoms with other amateurs as myself :)

So, why is it better to attack rather than defend? Because the attacker choses the moment of attack and so has an advantage.

How to prepare a good attack:

1. You have watched the opponent and you know he is not goint to attack.
2. You play with distance (check out Littel's videos on the former post) bringing your opponent to a good distance for you. You dont run after the opponent, you try to catch him as he is coming towards you.
3. When the right moment arises, attack without hesitation and without moves that betray you are going to attack. -Unless instead of a direkt attack you want to use a feint. Remember the feint should appear realistic, otherwise your opponent will not attempt to parry it.

 
 

Footwork!

I was surprised to find out that if you ask any good fencer about advice on fencing they will tell you to first work on footwork. I must thank Gav for suggesting this excellent video on footwork! More instructional videos on David Littel's youtube channel.

realistic fencing drawings

by fencer and artist Sascha Brock. Meticulous fencing depictions with a nice sense of movement!

 you can see more and also purchase them here.

amazing slow motion Epee!

Not just another fencing video, incredible high quality shooting slown down. Enjoy!

just awesome ^^

happy new year 2012!!!

Who said fencers can't fly?

Soren Thompson USA vs Paolo Pizzo (FencingWebTV.com)