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[Arx]

Man, I appreciate the advice but it's unfortunately completely horrible for me - I hate soccer and I have eight left feet. I used to be pretty good at hockey though, I should probably do some drills on that again.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

Man, I appreciate the advice but it's unfortunately completely horrible for me - I hate soccer and I have eight left feet. I used to be pretty good at hockey though, I should probably do some drills on that again.

in terms of getting physical activity--anything that makes you want to move. If you don't like soccer, no biggie--though it's not about being good, I'm certainly not--but whatever makes you want to move around is what you need to do.

[NRDL]

Have you thought about doing strength training, or training other than endurance/stamina based ones? It seems like you'd have an easier time doing stuff that may actually be fun for you as opposed to sticking with stuff you know you don't like.

[Arx]

I return! More terrible than before. I'm actually picking up fencing, which is something I've wanted to do for years but never had the opportunity to. That will, hopefully, provide both more exercise and more motivation for exercising.

[Arx]

This is my thread, and I will double post if I wish to!

I started fencing today. Lots of fun, and a good leg workout if not actually that physically exhausting. I'll probably start doing footwork exercises on off days, which'll serve for exercise.

[NRDL]

I have a cousin who did fencing for a while, he'd say their leg stances, constant squatting and weight shifting got his legs in the best shape of his life.

Glad to see you're having fun with this one, Arx.

[Arx]

I fenced/trained for about two hours straight this afternoon/evening. Feels good! Tomorrow will be an off day, but I might fit some training in on Wednesday before the next club meeting on Thursday.

[Arx]

Highlight of today's training session, accidentally retreated/almost shoved into a wall at decent speed. Whoops.

I did some footwork practice yesterday afternoon as well, so I'm feeling alright on the exercise front.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

As a former fencer, training is great if you're getting several hours of it at least every other day. Just make sure you stay on top of it as frankly, it doesn't do that much for you if you're just practicing two days a week or etc..

I know you don't want to hear this, but if you can find a way to work sprinting in, you'll find yourself in ridiculously good shape in no time.

To that point, because I know you don't like running, you may want to build advance-and-retreat drills into your routine if you haven't already. Aside from going as fast as possible, changing direction quickly is the thing that really works all your muscles and increases your general fitness.

What weapon are you fencing? In a purely activity-centric context, you may want to check out Saber if you're fencing Foil or Epee. Lots of running in at your opponent and then backpedaling as fast as possible.

[mastahcheese]

Posting to watch Arx's progress on cross-classing to swordsman.

I personally have zero experience on fencing, but plenty on swords, (I'm more of a slashing guy, rather than thrusting) but I am highly intrigued, in any case.

[kilakan]

Fencing is incredibly fun and I massively regret not being in the city where my club is anymore.  One thing that I would recommend you doing is a bunch  of weight lifting, and agility training while balancing on the balls of your feet.  Preferably bare footed or wearing sole-less leather shoes if you can find it.  While you won't want to be on the balls of your feet all the time in fencing, one of the things you need to get used to is getting as much speed and momentum out of as little movement as possible and the way my class did that was building a lot of ankle/foot muscles so you can spring backwards and forwards without any real major leg movement.

[Arx]

Posting to watch Arx's progress on cross-classing to swordsman.

I personally have zero experience on fencing, but plenty on swords, (I'm more of a slashing guy, rather than thrusting) but I am highly intrigued, in any case.

It involves a lot of very quick stabbing.

Fencing is incredibly fun and I massively regret not being in the city where my club is anymore.  One thing that I would recommend you doing is a bunch  of weight lifting, and agility training while balancing on the balls of your feet.  Preferably bare footed or wearing sole-less leather shoes if you can find it.  While you won't want to be on the balls of your feet all the time in fencing, one of the things you need to get used to is getting as much speed and momentum out of as little movement as possible and the way my class did that was building a lot of ankle/foot muscles so you can spring backwards and forwards without any real major leg movement.

I've been doing quite a lot of advance retreat drilling, which helps. Thanks for the tips!

[Arx]

Well, almost two hours straight on the piste this evening. Open evening at the best club in the city, which meant that half the time I was fencing against people my level, half the time I was fencing against international level players and trying to learn while getting bodied hard.

I did get some nice pointers, though, and I'm steadily improving. Tournament on Saturday and Sunday, we'll see how it goes!

[StrawBarrel]

Good luck in the tournament. You can do it!

[Arx]

Good luck in the tournament. You can do it!

It went more-or-less as expected! Which is to say, I got absolutely b o d i e d. But I learned a whole lot, which is why I was there. In my defence on getting bodied, suffice it to say that the foil tournament included someone who I think is the current national champion, someone who I think used to be the Italian national champion, a whole bunch of people that have fenced internationally before, and the newbies form my club.

The épée tournament, on the other hand, merely pitted us against... the national épée champion (who also happens to lecture my brother in C++, oddly) and another broad assortment of national-level competitors.

I will settle for the fact that I won a bout in both tournaments and only went down 5-0 about three times (out of a lot of bouts).

This week, I'm training some selection of Monday-Thursday; I'm not yet sure how many sessions I'll make it to. The plan is to up my épée game significantly, maaaybe to the point where I can enter the next tournament in three weeks or so with a better chance.