Tuesday's Mental Musings

My father collected swords and for a bit taught my sister and me how to fence. On Sunday’s he would vest, glove and mask us and himself and we would spar. When not in use the foils were mounted on velvet plaques that hung in the foyer of our apartment. I know this sounds strange. Most people don’t expect people who were born and raised in Brooklyn to know such things.

Fencing requires many skills. It is like dancing and when in sync with your opponent a ballet forms. My sister Monique had more patience than I. She parried and riposted and moved me around without breaking a sweat always poking or touching trying to provoke me so that I would lose my head. Had it been a real duel she would have drawn blood. Poking/Drawing blood angers your opponent and in the game of fencing garners points. Anger distracts and makes one react rather than act and more often than not allows you to be taken down.

I was never good at the dance and the poking never made me react, I just absorbed the pokes and kept moving. I didn’t like the dance and always went in for the end result, the kill, which doesn't exist in the sport of fencing with foils. I preferred to use the least moves to win, taking my opponent down at the legs and by doing so ended the ballet way too soon, good on a dueling field with a sabre (saber) and a horse, bad on a fencing court, or in our case a tiled hallway, with foils. I had to learn to play. I had to learn to tease, moving with and against my opponent so to linger and touch and garner points. I had to learn to stay within the accepted confines of the game. To be honest despite learning the skill of such play isn’t something I have ever mastered.

I haven’t fenced in years. Sometimes when in a situation I remember the lessons learned but that doesn’t mean I put the almost forgotten skills to use. I still prefer to go in for the kill by being direct and concise besides sometimes situations call for different lessons, different moves that I am still learning.