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Busy Weekend
May. 25th, 2009 03:28 pmFirst of all I was introduced to what may be the best cocktail ever, the caffeinetini.
1 fresh espresso
1 shot vodka
1 shot coffee liqueur
Then I spent Saturday fixing my presentation for Wednesday.
Sunday was spent being beaten up by Germans. City fencing have an exchange going with a club in Germany (well, the former Prussia) and this year was the 40th anniversary. There's a cup that is contested every year (location swapping between here and there). They won it, but, after two matches, I had an indicator of -1. I confounded people rather than being any good, but what works works. It's also an interesting example of how far behind the UK is in terms of technique. It took the people with good footwork to beat them (and for R to tell me to move my feet in an attempt to get me to beat them), and these aren't anywhere close to being anything but mid-range in Germany.
I pulled off a couple of really good moves though, and gave new captain R (a different R to the above) a mini-ego boost (and support for his training regime) by thanking him for the footwork lessons he's been making us do. Some of the other fencers object to the footwork lessons because they are boring (which they are) but they're vital. It's the difference between doing kind of okay and actually doing well (complete with a few other technique tweaks that I couldn't do if I didn't have the footwork base.) Rather annoyingly one of our coaches is suggesting teaching me compound attacks rather than letting me get better at parries and prix de feres which is what I want to practise. Housemate D, who is the present Captain, in particular dislikes footwork (discussion re: whether this is because he's been taught by Penzy who hates it too, or because he's an epeeist, because, as a whole they don't use it as much as foilists do is a discussion for another day) and they were having a debate about it after when we were eating and I was being used a reason for us to do more footwork.
1 fresh espresso
1 shot vodka
1 shot coffee liqueur
Then I spent Saturday fixing my presentation for Wednesday.
Sunday was spent being beaten up by Germans. City fencing have an exchange going with a club in Germany (well, the former Prussia) and this year was the 40th anniversary. There's a cup that is contested every year (location swapping between here and there). They won it, but, after two matches, I had an indicator of -1. I confounded people rather than being any good, but what works works. It's also an interesting example of how far behind the UK is in terms of technique. It took the people with good footwork to beat them (and for R to tell me to move my feet in an attempt to get me to beat them), and these aren't anywhere close to being anything but mid-range in Germany.
I pulled off a couple of really good moves though, and gave new captain R (a different R to the above) a mini-ego boost (and support for his training regime) by thanking him for the footwork lessons he's been making us do. Some of the other fencers object to the footwork lessons because they are boring (which they are) but they're vital. It's the difference between doing kind of okay and actually doing well (complete with a few other technique tweaks that I couldn't do if I didn't have the footwork base.) Rather annoyingly one of our coaches is suggesting teaching me compound attacks rather than letting me get better at parries and prix de feres which is what I want to practise. Housemate D, who is the present Captain, in particular dislikes footwork (discussion re: whether this is because he's been taught by Penzy who hates it too, or because he's an epeeist, because, as a whole they don't use it as much as foilists do is a discussion for another day) and they were having a debate about it after when we were eating and I was being used a reason for us to do more footwork.
