im trying a new sport.. - by jimjack
jimjack on 17/10/2007 at 18:06
I've always loved my football (soccer) and the season is petering out now..and I've been playing rugby at school. I've been given the position of hooker on accounting of my towering height all of 5'6 (I haven't grown any taller since I was fifteen, having turned 17 I don't forsee much of a growth spurt either:mad:) So each match I've been flung on my head by the props and generally followed up by getting trampled during the scrum push. I don't think I'm going to last the season. I've bruised my ribs, battered every part of my body, and have had two concussions albeit mild ones and taken/dragged of the pitch and I'm an easy target by members of both teams.. But still I persevere inspite of the damage I'm putting on myself.
Recently there's a club started up at school. Fencing. I've taken it up. I'm not the only guy there, but theres plenty of girls as well, not the reason why I'm participating. Just that it looks pretty cool and well, graceful while you get to impale another person The coach is an ex-fencer himself from France. He's got some awesome moves..Problem here is that now I'm getting ball-busted and basically getting my gender preferences confused and speculated. The get up they put you in isn't anything like a rugger uniform, it looks dippit.
Has anyone else tried out this fine sport? And what's your opinion on the sport. Is it considered in this day kind of ghey for a guy to start this up?
Like I said, the guys are giving me a hard time about this.
*Zaccheus* on 17/10/2007 at 19:09
I don't think it is 'ghey' at all.
My dad is into fencing. He said that anyone who wanted to learn it shouldn't see a sword for the first few weeks or months because the footwork is so important.
SubJeff on 17/10/2007 at 19:51
There is nothing ghey about fencing dude.
BEAR on 17/10/2007 at 20:20
My best friend was an avid fencer for many years. Its so very much different than movies etc make it look, incredibly fast and very challanging.
Nothing wrong with it at all. I've always wanted to play rugby but I would face a similar issue as you, if I could play people less than half again my size it would be great.
Thief13x on 17/10/2007 at 20:21
I was going to take intro to fencing at my school for the hell of it since I'm paying for more credits than I'm taking anyway. I decided to go with tennis instead because more people do that as a sport. I've heard it's pretty cool though.
demagogue on 17/10/2007 at 20:36
I did theatrical fencing when I was acting in RenFest plays back in the day ... not exactly the same, of course, but similar. It was always a big hit with the women in the audience, and the guys cheering you on in a stage fight, for that matter, yelling and slamming their beer mugs for you. (not sure a scholastic fencing meet would be quite as boisterous.)
Later, when I taught English in Japan, I had a chance to practice some kendo with my students, which is just effing cool, you wear this samurai exoskeleton and just over-head bash away at the other guys head! :D
If you spin it the right way, it's actually a kind of romantic sport. Girls that are going to be into the Princess Bride are going to be wooed.
As a sport, as a "man's" sport, I'd think it takes some real and subtle coordination, it is a martial art, and it has a much longer pedigree in the area of "what makes a man" than any other sport. It's reflective ... I think that's the reason why Holden Caulfield fenced.
You might supplement it with other things. The nice thing about theatrical fencing was, in addition to foils, we could practice with big ass broadswords and battle axes, which made us feel a little more mannish. Kendo is Star Wars style sword fighting. Also, just some general martial arts could complement it ... karate, judo ... something like that. Also, sword collecting and learning about how knives and swords are made, their history, etc, also complements it and is pretty cool.
Maybe your mates won't be so impressed no matter how you spin it.
I don't know ... challenge them to a duel?
SubJeff on 17/10/2007 at 21:18
Quote Posted by demagogue
I had a chance to practice some kendo with my students, which is just effing cool, you wear this samurai exoskeleton and just over-head bash away at the other guys head!
Hundreds of years of skill and tradition distilled down to this. :rolleyes: :p
demagogue on 17/10/2007 at 21:49
It's like when you're learning to write Chinese characters ... the first thing they want you to do is write the character "one" like a million times. It's just a single horizontal line. So you sit there, writing dash, dash, dash ... - - - - - - - - ... over and over and over, and the teacher will say, again, again, 100 times, another 100. Even though it seems so elementary, you have to get it perfectly.
Same sort of idea, you keep doing this over-head arcing headshot over and over, "hyah!" ... it starts off clumsy, but as you keep doing it, it gets better and better, and you get more and more confident. But if you were watching from a distance, you might think it's no better than "wax on, wax off".
Granted, I didn't give the description of it that's probably how the teacher wanted it to be portrayed. But, in my defense, being in a samurai exoskeleton with a flexi-bamboo sword and a group of awesome students does things to your head! You can't not get into the part.
Shug on 18/10/2007 at 00:25
How heavy are you, jimjack? Hooker isn't an ideal position unless you're built fairly solidly, and if you're playing lower levels you can be a decent flanker as long as you have some pace. It's only as you get up to the higher levels of play (1st/2nd XV) that you need to be very powerful as a loose forward, and often being slighter and more agile is a bonus in a scrappy game.
Scots Taffer on 18/10/2007 at 00:33
Sounds like fencing is the only place jimjack can put his tip into girls, get the point?
