Open air training: learning and play

New toys, new games, new kinds of fencing fun. I'm starting to wonder why we haven't done open air fencing training before!

Yes, really. Today's session was a huge amount of fun and I learnt much more than I expected to (I now understand why a septiéme parry is so useful!).

I can't quite put my finger on why it was such a great session. Maybe it's because we weren't bouting today that helped me focus on technique, or the small group and the quiet park in late autumn allowing me to concentrate. Maybe it's because I haven't seen my fencing friends in what seems like a long time. Perhaps doing some balance and agility exercises before picking up a weapon (and we did plenty of playing with weapons) helped me connect with my body in a new way. Maybe it was the considered planning and structure that coach Jo Williams infused into the session, or the newness that encouraged a kind of co-creation among the fencers about what exercises we'd like to invent and try out.

Perhaps it was all those things.

But my favourite moment from the day was realising that there are things we're exploring and learning in this new context that we're going to keep doing. The way we train at the club isn't merely going to 'go back to normal' eventually. It's going to be much better than normal ever was.