question 3: now with (even more) fencing!
Mar. 23rd, 2008 08:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anotheranonWell, you did ask: I would like to get even more blog about fencing. But I would like the story from the beginning; the "why" and "when" and all the "how you got started".
Star Wars almost certainly had something to do with it. Not necessarily the fencing style, but the idea of a sword and a discipline for learning to use it.
Understand: even though I watched Star Wars obsessively and was wowed by the occasional swashbuckling movie, I was not a "play acting" kid (indeed, I preferred to direct) and had such a rotten time in gym class with it's boring array of team sports played with balls and team members whose "win or die" attitude I didn't get that I was pretty much convinced by age 18 that I didn't "do sports". A surprise PE requirement was sprung on me in junior year of college and all that was left was....jogging. That didn't impress me either :P
I was always a slim kid and running around campus followed by retail work kept me slim until I started a desk job - then age/inactivity finally caught up with me. I tried the recumbent bike and the odd jumping jack and sit up and they were still boring.
Then I remembered just how COOL fencing looked, and tentatively surveyed my options online.
To actually pay money for a sport class and commit to following it through required an attitude adjustment, mostly getting over hating to have people see me exercise and the idea that I'd suck at it anyway.
But, but... it just looked so sexy...so I decided that fear of ridicule or failure were stupid reasons not to.
It was hard at first - it took most of the beginner's class to get my hands and feet to work together and I remember asking the coach if I should even bother staying with it.
He reassured me that my slow progress was normal. My fencing bud A., an older gentleman who had been attending class for 10 years and who I considered a bit of a fanatic, finally convinced me to join "club", where I got to practice what we learned in class....
The rest is history. Now this kid always picked last for kickball is a bona fide athlete who talks A. into competing and attempts to drag anyone in my orbit towards the Gospel of the Sword :P
Star Wars almost certainly had something to do with it. Not necessarily the fencing style, but the idea of a sword and a discipline for learning to use it.
Understand: even though I watched Star Wars obsessively and was wowed by the occasional swashbuckling movie, I was not a "play acting" kid (indeed, I preferred to direct) and had such a rotten time in gym class with it's boring array of team sports played with balls and team members whose "win or die" attitude I didn't get that I was pretty much convinced by age 18 that I didn't "do sports". A surprise PE requirement was sprung on me in junior year of college and all that was left was....jogging. That didn't impress me either :P
I was always a slim kid and running around campus followed by retail work kept me slim until I started a desk job - then age/inactivity finally caught up with me. I tried the recumbent bike and the odd jumping jack and sit up and they were still boring.
Then I remembered just how COOL fencing looked, and tentatively surveyed my options online.
To actually pay money for a sport class and commit to following it through required an attitude adjustment, mostly getting over hating to have people see me exercise and the idea that I'd suck at it anyway.
But, but... it just looked so sexy...so I decided that fear of ridicule or failure were stupid reasons not to.
It was hard at first - it took most of the beginner's class to get my hands and feet to work together and I remember asking the coach if I should even bother staying with it.
He reassured me that my slow progress was normal. My fencing bud A., an older gentleman who had been attending class for 10 years and who I considered a bit of a fanatic, finally convinced me to join "club", where I got to practice what we learned in class....
The rest is history. Now this kid always picked last for kickball is a bona fide athlete who talks A. into competing and attempts to drag anyone in my orbit towards the Gospel of the Sword :P
