Tired from all that paddling, I didn't really want to fence tonight, but wanted to practice for Pittsburg. Also we have a new person, and I promised to give her a personal lesson. This is a gal named Ann, who is in the process of changing her life and her weight, having lost 38 pounds in the last couple of months. One of her fantasies has always been to fence, and she has been so determined (but deterred by the weight) that she has read all the fencing books, emailed excellent questions to Don, and come to our club to watch. Monday I decided to talk to her and see when she thought she'd be ready to try herself. She was very self -conscious, but I felt she isn't that "big" that she shouldn't get started. She spend 3 days a week with a personal trainer, is running in marathons, and so is getting in very nice shape for someone who has always been out of shape....As promised, she came ready to learn, and as promised, I showed up too. We did only an enguard position, advances, retreats, lunge, 4 ane 6 position of the hand. I had her hit the wall with just an extension and with a lunge, which would help her start to develop point control, right from the first. She did really really well and stopped self-demeaning and settled down to learning. I think she's quite excited about the whole thing. Don gave her a weapon to take home to practice with and she was like a kid at Christmas! I also talked to Marcin about how he did at the tournament (having watched all his videos), which is very encouraging. We had a fun round-robin mini tournament (dry) and ended with one of our melees - we divide into two teams -fight to steal the glove from the other side. What fun! Glad I went!
Amber, Steve, Marcin and M's girlfriend - waiting to fence
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