A fencing tip

Here's a tip for all my fellow fencers.

Today, my performance at the salle was spotty. I had my moments, but I was missing a lot of hand, wrist, and forearm short attacks and counterattacks. (I'm an epeeist.) And my game incorporates a lot of those. When I pick them up, I tend to win, and when I miss them, I tend to lose.

Anyway, in my frustration, I did what any experienced fencer would do. I blamed my equipment.

This was easy to do because I was fencing with a new weapon, or at least, new in the Frankenstein sense. It was newly assembled from the good pieces of weapons that had lived and died before it. Really, it felt pretty good in my hand, but a smidge heavier and stiffer than I think is ideal, so there was my excusee for blaming it.

Anyway, when I got up for my last bout of the day, against one of the better fencers in my club, I told it, "If you don't get some hand touches for me this time, you're going to Backup Weapon status. You're going back in the bag and not coming out again for a long while."

After which I scored a number of hand touches and won the bout.

So the moral is clear, fencers. If things aren't going well, threaten your weapon.