Today I didn’t feel like a competent human being because at lunchtime, I realized my pants were on backwards.
Despite that, I learned about the progression of skills when teaching rapier, and I found that learning, translating (for a leftie), and teaching sabre, while difficult, is not as scary as I thought.
Again, I took a lot of notes. Tonight was more revel and less scholarship, but that’s still pretty cool.
I was dressed and ready to fence Wednesday night, but I had a sinus headache, and I was afraid I was getting sick, so I skipped. Thursday was a travel day, so I didn’t work out, but I did get the ball rolling on my personal fitness assessment. I’m excited.
Today was Day 1 of the Rapier and Sabre Pedagogy (RASP) Retreat. We got here with enough time to introduce ourselves before warm-ups. We warmed up with footwork and spent the morning practicing teaching rapier techniques. We started by teaching a simple lunge and worked up to covering cavaciones and other complex short-tempo actions.
After lunch, we got out the sabres. I felt like I was learning how to use a sabre as much as I was learning how to teach someone else how to use one. My partner and I helped each other through the drills without necessarily doing the calls like we did during the rapier portion, and I felt like that worked pretty well.
I got a lot of feedback and took a lot of notes. I hope that sleeping on it will help me process and retain it.
Marie's Fitness Blog 