This weekend I went to Castle Wars. The only one-on-one fighting I did aside from the prize fight consisted of pickups. Most of what we did was melee fencing.

My friend received the highest level rapier award one can get in the SCA (Master of the Order of Defense). I missed the vigil, but I was happy to fence with him in his prize. He told me he’s seen my “murder face.” I feel like that’s a step in the right direction.

I had the chance to lead a small army in several bridge battles. When we weren’t doing organized fencing events, I did pickups with several fencers I don’t see very often.

I’ve decided to revisit the lunge challenge since someone pointed out that I don’t commit to lunges. I’d rather that be a choice, not a limitation. I’ve always felt like I shouldn’t play the distance game because I’m short, but I know plenty of short people who do killer lunges, so I should adjust that mind set.

Day 24

Doing the advance-lunges at home is difficult in the space I’m in, but I did it.

I’m having a lot of trouble with this exercise from a pedagogical standpoint. I’m going to keep doing it while I’m looking into how exercises like these help people. However, I’ll be modifying each day’s routine into a paired drill.

Day 23

Today I went to practice and helped teach. I did my official lunges before class and while Nik was explaining hand position.

I also did lunges and basic footwork with my students. Sometimes I go to the front and help teach, but I like being in the ranks with everyone else to show that even if you’ve been doing this for a few years, it’s always good to go over the fundamentals.

The shoulder is okay. Lowering the target helps. My quads are still tight. I stopped to stretch frequently. I think this tightening might be causing me to narrow my stance a bit. I don’t know how much this change will impact my fencing. More on that later, I suppose.

Day 22

Today I skipped Krav and went to fencing to see off my friend who is moving. I got to help teach and spar a little bit. I also worked in 100 lunges. Now we’re adding an advance step.

My legs are sore, but my shoulder is finally piping down. No anti-inflammatories or muscle relaxers for the past few workouts.

Day 21

Today I did my lunges after doing 30 minutes on the elliptical and 5 minutes on the punching bag at the gym. My punches are getting better. The big knuckles are the ones with the chafing from my gloves!

I don’t know how much lowering the target for my lunges helped me because I’m still sore around the edges from Krav last night (it wasn’t nonstop like Monday, but it was a challenging class, and we did go over our time). I hit the target more often than not. When the movement gets robotic, I get sloppy.

I’m taking ibuprofen before combat activities and a muscle relaxer after (like as soon as I get home so I’m not a zombie the next day). Shoulders are stiff but starting to get back to where they were, flex wise. Now my calves are angry with me. Fortunately, what I’m experiencing now is soreness, not pain.

Day 20

I did an hour of yoga today and then decided to revisit the lunge challenge. As soon as I started, it felt wrong. I couldn’t figure it out right away, but I’ve decided that my target is too high. I moved it down so that it’s more or less parallel to my heart. Maybe holding the sword lower (you know, like I do when I fence) will help.

Day 19

undetectable-extension-charm:

fencingmarie:

undetectable-extension-charm:

fencingmarie:

I was feeling pretty good, so I put in 100 lunges this afternoon. My right shoulder/back region started tingling about halfway through. I was in third hand position. I don’t know if the problem is hand position, body position, repetitive motion, or the time spent holding the sword out in front of me. Up to this point, my back has gotten tingly from sitting down. Leaning against a seat back usually helps.

I’ve noticed that when I do this drill, I square off a lot more than I usually do when I fence. I’m trying to turn sideways to present less of a target (you know, the way I was taught to fence in the first place). Unfortunately, whenever I think about narrowing the available target, then my lunge becomes narrower, or I stop hitting my target.

hi friend! as an epee fencer, i would suggest keeping your back straight instead of turning sideways. as youve noticed, you tend to miss the target. I too used to lunge like that but my coach told me to stop – for one, it’s also incredibly difficult to do a second action after the lunge. naturally, you should do what fit’s you best but my advice to you is to always keep your back straight and to not lean – this will stop bad habits from forming.

i think it’s really great that youre doing 100 lunges every day! that’s the kind of practice that will get you far.

Hi! Thanks for the advice. I’ll keep on doing what I was doing before then, but I have a question.

When you line up to fence, are you turning your body sideways, or are you more squared off with your opponent? When I do foil, epee, or single rapier, I try to present a small sideways target but almost always end up squared off. When I have an offhand device, being squared off has its advantages, but when I don’t, I’m not sure that I’m doing myself any favors.

If you’re interested in the 10,000 Lunge challenge, I’ll send you the document with details about each day’s prescribed drills. You’ll probably have to modify it to fit epee, though, since this was designed by a historic rapier fighter.

usually, i am squared off. i find this a lot better because your point control increases. i like doing a mix between stophits and parries (im defensive) so its important for me to keep my back from turning because otherwise i will miss and my opponnent will get the point.
this said, i do have a bad habit: when i lunge, i turn my back so you can only see my side (as well as a lean). this makes it impossible to see what your opponnent is doin and you cant do a second hit. its always important to have at least a second hit planned because most likely your first one isnt going to hit.

leaning in my lunge has resulted with tendonitis in both my knees which is why i dont practice lunges anymore. i need my knees to heal first. but thank you very much for the offer!

i love fencing and talking about fencing so if you have any other questions please let me know! or if you just wanna chat, im there too 🙂

Hell yeah! I’m always stoked to make fencing friends. This isn’t my primary blog, but I’m working on creating a new fencing-blog account and adding it as a contributor here so that I can follow blogs, send asks, etc. and keep all the fencing stuff in one place.

As far as lunging is concerned, I don’t do a lot of it if I can avoid it. I study Italian rapier, which involves a fair amount of lunging, but as I’ve made it my own and adapted to my own body type (imagine a personification of a Welsh corgi – barrel chested, short arms and legs), I’ve found that I enjoy a close fight much more than the distance game. I don’t have a lot of reach unless I lean in and present my head as a nice, vulnerable target.

I’ve been doing the lunge challenge mostly to connect with my fellow fencers, but I thought that practicing more lunges might encourage me to lunge more. I’m planning to pick it back up since taking it easy didn’t really make me feel any better. As I get back into it, I’ll let you know how it goes.

I haven’t been doing much fighting, so I haven’t been doing much updating. I haven’t even attempted progress on my lunges.

I went to Krav on Wednesday and had a good and productive practice, but I was sore for days afterward. I’m going to both classes this week, but I’m going to tape my shoulder and tell my instructors what’s up. I think it’s pressure, not movement, that’s causing my problems.

I’ve been resting up as much as possible since then. It stinks, but it also really helps.

I see my GP on Thursday. Wish me luck.

Day 19

undetectable-extension-charm:

fencingmarie:

I was feeling pretty good, so I put in 100 lunges this afternoon. My right shoulder/back region started tingling about halfway through. I was in third hand position. I don’t know if the problem is hand position, body position, repetitive motion, or the time spent holding the sword out in front of me. Up to this point, my back has gotten tingly from sitting down. Leaning against a seat back usually helps.

I’ve noticed that when I do this drill, I square off a lot more than I usually do when I fence. I’m trying to turn sideways to present less of a target (you know, the way I was taught to fence in the first place). Unfortunately, whenever I think about narrowing the available target, then my lunge becomes narrower, or I stop hitting my target.

hi friend! as an epee fencer, i would suggest keeping your back straight instead of turning sideways. as youve noticed, you tend to miss the target. I too used to lunge like that but my coach told me to stop – for one, it’s also incredibly difficult to do a second action after the lunge. naturally, you should do what fit’s you best but my advice to you is to always keep your back straight and to not lean – this will stop bad habits from forming.

i think it’s really great that youre doing 100 lunges every day! that’s the kind of practice that will get you far.

Hi! Thanks for the advice. I’ll keep on doing what I was doing before then, but I have a question.

When you line up to fence, are you turning your body sideways, or are you more squared off with your opponent? When I do foil, epee, or single rapier, I try to present a small sideways target but almost always end up squared off. When I have an offhand device, being squared off has its advantages, but when I don’t, I’m not sure that I’m doing myself any favors.

If you’re interested in the 10,000 Lunge challenge, I’ll send you the document with details about each day’s prescribed drills. You’ll probably have to modify it to fit epee, though, since this was designed by a historic rapier fighter.

Day 18

I decided to give it a try, and I did 100 lunges at practice tonight. I used Nik as my pell for the first 50 and hit a thumb-sized piece of tape on the wall for my next 50. We’ll see what the shoulder says in the morning.

I also got to do some endurance training. We fenced single sword for 10 minutes straight (well, 9 minutes, we were interrupted). We were going to do 11 minutes with sword and dagger, but I smashed my finger and had to stop. Somehow I managed to pin my middle finger on my left hand between the grip of my dagger and the hilt of his sword (yes, I got the kill). I’ll live, but I was done for the day.