Saturday, May 17, 2008

Fencing - May 18

Today was the first fencing class. Until this week, our family knew nothing about fencing. But, between the Internet and the fencing class, we're all getting an education. The fencing classes are held in a church gym on Saturday mornings and are taught by the fencing coach at Lawrence University. We went at 8:30 since the kids are beginners and the teacher taught them some beginning stances and beginning footwork - attention, en garde, advance, retreat, and extend. They even got to work with a foil a little bit. (This class teaches only foil, although the teacher does give private lessons in the other two disciplines of epee and saber.) At 9am, the intermediate class started. My kids also participated in this class (although they hadn't yet learned lunges, parry, and some other things). The students in this class also used the teacher's equipment and were just above the beginner stage. At 10am, the advanced class started. We watched about the first 15 minutes of this class. They did all the same beginning footwork, but a LOT faster. It was really cool to see the more advanced moves.

Ga'Hoole Girl really enjoyed the class and really wants to continue. Wild Man isn't so sure. He's only ten and has trouble with being committed to working at things (except baseball). But, Mr. Math Teacher had a great time watching and he thinks that he's going to start the class next week. It looks like Ga'Hoole Girl and Mr. Math Teacher are going to become fencers. Who knows about Wild Man - by next week he could be all gung-ho about it. Anyway, it seems to be a great sport!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That's awesome! Fencing sounds like fun. C has found that E sticks with Tae Kwon Do much better since he's doing it with him. Since Mr. Math Teacher is going to take lessons also, hopefully Ga Hoole Girl and/or Wild Man will stick with it. Sounds like a unit on knights and castles could be in order!