SUNDAY FUNDAY
Wow, what a Sunday! There was so much we had to get through but I think it all went quite well. We started out the usual warmups and stretches, then some light sparring. Then we went into the first of two planned lessons, which was bladework/blade defense. This was going to be critical since we were going to do seated fencing that day.
Once we got some seated fencing done (which is a real arm burner, by the way), special guest Yiqing Cai from Singapore’s The Saber Authority stepped in to give a lesson on saber-staff wielding. And yes, he taught REAL saber-staff— not staff, but saber-staff, meaning the central handle is the main weak point— and how to deal with that vulnerability. The students even had a chance to spar lightly with their staves (which were just 6 ft PVC pipes).
Once we were in open session, we setup a ring for our special guest and a couple benches for our birthday boys, officers David Walker and Nick Grange, who both screwed up their knee or ankle doing anything but fencing, thus why we prepared everybody for some seated fencing. Each of our special guest and fencers got at least one round with everybody in the gym.
We’d like to thank Yiqing for coming in and training us and who knows, maybe we’ll be able to have more staff in the future!
