When in doubt stick your arm out!

-the best piece of fencing advice I've recently red :D And indeed when I see a fleche comming I stick my arm out automatically and many times I'm lucky and people run into my blade :p

So, as my Semester has come to an end I shall soon leave rainy Germany for warmer climates and I wont be posting for a little while.
But first let me post two videos for Epee beginners, from a fencing-techniques series which I've watched quite a few times. It has been heavily criticised by more advanced fencers but for a starter-level I find it very helpful and I haven't found anything better online anyway.

The following video is on finding vulnerabilties on the opponent.

Flicks and Angles for Epee-fencing:

That's all for now! Have fun watching!

Warm greetings to Beno  ;)

Fencing ads

Curtain falls for european senior fencing championship '11

And yes it's all over, today was the 7th and last day of spectacular fencing - no longer will I seat all comfy on my bed with a cup of coffee watching fencers exert themselves. This fantastic event was held in Sheffield, Britain, and I must say the online coverage was great appart from some MASK problems. The streaming video quality was high and the commentators were truly witty. I also enjoyed chatting with other viewers (mostly fencers themselves) on the chat at the screen-side :)

Vezzali (who not so long ago had a baby) celebrating her victory -

a living proof that fencing is not just for the very young.

So here is the medal table:

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Italy (ITA)	5	2	2	9
2	France (FRA)	1	2	0	3
3	Russia (RUS)	1	1	6	8
4	Germany (GER)	1	1	2	4
5	Ukraine (UKR)	1	1	1	3
6	Switzerland (SUI)	1	0	1	2
7	Hungary (HUN)	0	1	2	3
8	Poland (POL)	0	1	1	2
9	Netherlands (NED)	0	1	0	1
10	Romania (ROU)	0	0	1	1
Total		10	10	16	36

For further results see here.


Being the Epee-biased fencing chick that I am, let me quote from wiki some women's epee results.

Individual

Position	Name	Country
1 !	Tiffany Geoudet	Switzerland
2 !	Britta Heidemann	Germany
3 !	Ana Branza	Romania
3 !	Nathalie Moellhausen	Italy
5.	Malgorzata Stroka	Poland
6.	Bianca del Carretto	Italy
7.	Laura Flessel-Colovic	France
8.	Rossella Fiamingo	Italy

Fencing equipment online

Here are some fencing equipment providers on the web:

• http://www.allstar.de/
• http://www.uhlmann-fechtsport.com/
• http://www.pbtfencing.com/home.html
• http://www.leonpaul.com/
• http://www.duellistfencing.com/

Another place to shop fencing equipment online is ebay. I got my second-hand FIE fencing uniform  there for a fair price. For an amateur like me  second-hand stuff is just fine. Although I'm thinking on investing on a good FIE electric Epee sometime soon.

Fancy Epee guards  for sale on fencing.net

Epee colour blades from StM

Please note this post is non-commercial, I do not claim any of the above to be better than other brands.

Just burbling....

I came back a while ago from my last training for the summer, it was perfect! I just have this wonderful feeling of knowing I did my best. I swetted like a pig^^ and had tones of fun. First I practised parries etc. with the coach and he seemed quite pleased. I think I'm finally improving my 8th and 7th. Then I had a few bouts with a fellow amateuer fencer, who hasn't been training for a while though, so victory was easy. Then I lost from an older member of the club 10-5 but I'm very pleased that I even scored that much. I hope he didn't give any points away but I'm sure he didn't fence to his maximum. Last time we fenced I remember getting an arm dotted with four blue bruises, today I got away with just one so I must be doing something right! Well I think I'm slowly achieving making smaller movements, keeping my arm stretched out and keeping  better distance.
Oh I'm a bit sad I wont be fencing in August... I hope I won't forget everything.

Fencing in the dark!

Lightsaberish combat by junior fencers using "El-wire" (some kind of glowy tape).

Fencing gadgets

Free gadget to downlad for planning tournaments and creating a databace on you pc is fencing time