In fencing practice today, I realized that after two years, most of my competent fencers have gone, and what I am left with is a lot of rank beginners. This gives me a significant advantage over most of them, because I’m not still wondering how to perform basic moves; I’ve moved on to dealing with beat-attacks, prises de fer, feint-deceives, and all the other wonderful intermediate tricks up the fencer’s sleeve.

What I can do, though, is perform these tricks on my rank amateurs. I can’t yet do them on any of my competent fencers. And I can’t seem to perform them properly on opponents and colleagues at other fencing clubs; it only works against my own fencers and to everyone else, these moves are transparent.

Which means I am really good at demonstrating my competence as a fencer against seventh graders.

I’m such a bully.

Liked it? Take a second to support Andrew on Patreon!