Oct 02 2008
Wednesday 1st October
Hello all!
Last night the club only had 8 members, mainly as it was Eid (Eid Mubarak! to everyone who was celebrating!).
Anyway, the 8 who were there did themselves proud and are starting to show some really good technique when performing their cuts.
First of all we started with a salute, which Connor demonstrated excellently. From there we went into our En Guard position and practised our Cut 1. Mphanga reminded us how to do this by cutting across me! I don’t think it is every day she will get to bash a teacher with a sword!
From our Cut 1, we then learned our Cut 2 (see the diagram below!). Cut One is in red and Cut Two is in blue, it is just like creating a big X!
After marching up and down the hall a few times, practising our cuts with our fencing steps, I asked Alana to put a fencing mask on and we got a plastic sabre each. Alana had to try and hit me (and as she is a left handed swordswoman she is a bit tricky to fence against!). When somebody tries to hit you with a sword there are two things you can do! My class got both of them straight away 
A: Put your sword in the way to keep you safe (nice one Connor).
B: GET OUT THE WAY!!!!! (excellent idea Jordan).
Now usually you can just get out the way, if you see what your opponent is going to do, but if you can’t, you need to get your sword in the way as quickly as you can to stop you from getting bashed.
So, against the two cuts we have learned so far, we also learned our first two guards, quarte and tierce. See the pictures below.
Quarte
Tierce
From then on we practised cuts against our partners whilst our partners practised their blocks against our cuts. At the end of the lesson, all the children lined up and were allowed two cuts against me to see if they could do the cuts properly. Everybody did really well and all are starting to show that they might give Jack Sparrow a run for his money soon!
