This is late, but I wanted to put a note up about the Purdue Open. I had a strange day - I fenced well in the pools, and I fenced well in the DE's. I just ran into a guy who dropped some pool bouts he shouldn't have. So I saw him in an early round (16), rather than the semifinal or final.

He was fencing extremely well, and jumped out to a big lead early. I figured out how to be effective against him, and started to claw my way back, but he had too big a lead. All in all, I'm pleased with how I fenced - I just had an odd draw in the DE's.

I missed a few weeks of writng about class. We have several new fencers this past month, and they are taking to it well. A lot of the focus this past month has been on getting a better sense of how far away we can be and still launch a simple attack. Part of this is gettin gthe arm fully extended during the attack, and the other is getting the transition from one movement to the next to be smooth and continuous. Yesterday, we worked on a ballestra. This is a jump forward followed immediately with a lunge. First we worked on getting both feet to land at the same time on the jump.

Against my better judgment, I decided to enter this world of blog. So blog on these thoughts for a blog, and blog me if you think I’m blog. Saturday was my first tournament (as the blog title of the blog states), and, other than being entirely exhausted, I had a great time. After not competing in any meaningful way since early 1996, it was nice to get the adrenaline up to that level again. That said, I want to blog a few things that struck me.

This week we started working on presses. The emphasis was on executing a press based on feel rather than sight. We started by practicing maintaining engagement of the blades with movement. Then we progressed to executing a press with no reaction from the opponent. Then we did the press and the opponent pushed back. If the opponent does not react, then the attacker does a direct attack. If the defender pushes back the attacker disenagages and then attacks.

So I thought I should explain what this Neutral Point Position thing is

Basically, I've changed two things:
1. Where my point is:
I used to keep it a bit higher than my hand, and pointed straight down the outside line of my body. (High and outside = guarding 6, but only slightly higher than my bell.) Now I'm keeping my hand down (level with the ground), and placing my point inside, toward my opponent's bell. Note that my hand is still out along the outside of my body, not in the middle of my body.

Jason pointed out a flaw (thus far) in the new Neutral Point Position thing I've been trying lately: I don't seem to be defending my weapon shoulder very much at all right now. This is partly because I'm still figuring out what I'm doing with my hand, so I'm sort of intentionally not reacting to some things.

Anyway, Jason said he thinks he can hit my front shoulder just about any time he wants to, as long as he gets my point moving in some direction that is not "up". Straight fleche.