It has been a long time since I have written on this blog, so I will update it with some news. Since the competition (see the previous blog post), there was no fencing club in the final half term of the year 2008/2009.

Fencing club restarted in September and took a new group of 16 children through until October half term. Fencing club has now just started with a second group of 16 children, many of whom are completely new to fencing.

I am very pleased that fencing club is constantly being filled to the maximum allowed and I hope that pupils will keep coming back to practice and learn more skills.

Mr F

We had the competition, unfortunately school vid camera vanished before hand, so could not video it. However, we had over 35 entrants to the competition. It was split between a Years 3/4 and a Years 5/6. We even had parents come to watch!!!!

Because we had so many enter, it had to be straight knock out competition and this led to it being very highly competitive. Many of the children did not stick to what they had been taught, but ended up playing sword tag. I cracked down on this and did not allow any hits that were not delivered properly. I even took a few points off for silly behaviour.

One rule I introduced was after 3 double hits, it was the next clean hit that won. This encouraged fencers to keep themselves safe and not always go for the first hit, regardless of safety.

In the end the Y3/4 competition went to Al Aqmar and the Y5/6 competition went to Nadine, who suddenly discovered that lunging against big boys who do nothing but try to deliver massive cuts is highly effective. We also had one rather exceptional disarm although I can’t remember who did that!

All in all it was a great success, fencing will return in September.

Mr F

Due to the fact that our fencing club has quite a few more experienced fencers, I decided it was time to see if they could put their technical skills to the test in a more tactical situation.

We split into 2 teams. The aim of the game was to capture the opposition teams sword and return it to their own base without being hit on the way there or the way back. It led to a very fast and furious game with plenty of good technique shown, although as it went on a few people decided that swinging their sword around was a safe idea. They quickly learnt otherwise!

The provisional date for the fencing competition will be Wednesday 10th June. There will be a year 3/4 competition and a year 5/6 competition with the prizes being wooden swords with inscriptions on them for the winners.

Keep practising hard!

Mr F

This lesson saw the third group graduate from their beginners courses and also saw some excellent fencing and even one disarm.

So first things first, congratulations to Omar, Arbaaz, Antony, Alia, Sumaiya, Sidra, Jumanah, Sarah, Saif, Yahia and Haitham, who all passed their tests with flying colours!

Special mentions go to Saif who excelled in his use of all the cuts and going for new openings. Haitham, who had got caught up in a bind (when two swords are trapped together) grabbed his opponents sword and delivered a good thrust. Aliya did some spectacular running past opponents with her sword whilst delivering cuts, which in german swordsmanship is called uberlaufen.

We also did a very basic wrestling manouver at the end on mats and safely with foam swords. The children all did very well and it was a great way to end their course!

Don’t forget to keep practising for the competition in the summer!

Mr F.

The fencing club is still going strong with a good group working hard at improving their skills in fencing in preparation for next weeks graduation, where I will hopefully have all the certificates ready to give out!

Some news for the future, in the last half term before the summer holidays I will be holding a KS2 fencing competition which will be open to anyone who has taken part in fencing club over the past year.

There will be a Year 3/4 and a Year 5/6 competition to make things fair and to give as many people a chance to win as possible. The prizes will be model wooden longswords with the date and school logo on them, similar to the ones show below.

So keep practising and hopefully you will be in with a chance of winning a prize!

Mr F.

Now this has been talked about before. In fact it happened over 400 years ago.

This is a quote from another blog that explains this. It mentions a man called Silver. He was a fencing teacher who lived during the time of Queen Elizabeth. At the end of the quote there is a bit of English written at the time of Queen Elizabeth.

Below is a conversation with a new student who turned up to back-sword training last night, which for my amusement I present in the traditional manner. It is interesting to note that this student claimed no knowledge of any other martial art before coming along to my class:

That is indeed what Silver says to do, although he phrases it somewhat differently and puts it in a different order:

1. The fyrſt is to ſtrike or thruſt at him, at yt inſtant when he haue gayned yõ the place by his cominge in.
2. The ſecond is to ward, & Aftr to ſtrike of thruſt from yt, remembringe yor gournors.
3. The thyrd is to ſlippe alyttle backe & to ſtrike or thruſt after hym.

Well, the second group have finished their course and have successfully passed their test to get their certificates.

Congratulations to Halima, Shadreck, Al-Aqmar, Luke, Caitlin, Amad, Mphango, Antony and Mateen.

Keep practising your skills as there will be a school competition later in the year!

Mr F

We also had a new game where we had to swap masks in safe areas (behind benches). We only have 10 masks and our club usually has about 16-18 a week. To make it fair all 10 masks were in use all the time, but as soon as you were hit, you had to go to a safe area, take your mask off and hand it to someone who had not been hit. Once they had put their mask on safely they were able to go and join in the fencing melee that was happening in the hall.

Next week, fencing assessment, hopefully with colour certificates!

Mr F.

It is called fencing in the barriers. Basically, we mark out a square area using blue benches. Two fencers may enter this area. There are 2 rules. You do not lose if you don’t get hit and you don’t touch the benches.

There was plenty of good fencing this week, with some excellent parries and ripostes. There were plenty of examples of children using the proper cuts and thrusts. Hopefully this will continue as in 2 weeks it will be the skill at arms to see if they can apply what they have learned.

Mr F

So, three weeks had passed since the last club and as far as I could see, all of the group had had a very nice Christmas. So it was time to work off all those sweets and time sitting in front of the tv with a good bit of fencing. Much for my need as my fencing groups

So to begin with we had a quick bit of revision on foot work, including trying something called a demi volte. This is simply a nice step to the side to avoid the pointy part of your opponents sword that is coming your way! But it is very useful because it means you are out of the way of the sword and still able to hit your opponent!

After this, we played the bridge game (see a few weeks back) to practice and then I decided to have a bit of a free for all. Each person had to stand at least two arms lengths away from each other and when I shouted “Engage!” they had to fight until the last pupil was unhit. Each fighter had to be very honest and if they got hit go and stand to the side until the battle was over. It all ended rather spectacularly when Mphango and Jaz managed to double kill each other!!!

Oh well, I will try and teach them to DEFEND themselves next week…

Mr F