A contemporary design concept.

The triangular crest which was eventually used by the school.

The color logo as it appeared embroidered on a towel.

Leaning more towards the traditional, LFA’s current logo features a two-headed eagle wearing fencing masks on both heads!

If you are interested in commissioning a logo, send me an email for a quote. Prices are flat-rate, reasonable, and include three concept designs to choose from.

MDR

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Spiffy!

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Today’s post is sponsored by All-American Fencing Academy. Dime-store toy swords are everywhere nowadays, but they tend to be either too stiff to use safely or too floppy to parry. Here’s a look at fencing toys, past and present.

Mashoonga

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen a foam noodle used as a practice sword. There’s a local club that uses home-made ones for training kids, I believe it’s a plastic PVC tube with a half a noodle stuck on the end. It can be trimmed to the right size and is stiff enough to use as a point weapon. I haven’t seen their use in class, however, so I’m not sure of their specific usage.

The new Nerf N-force swords get points for style:

Possibly an improvement over the old Nerf Fencing:

Of course there’s always the good ol’ Triplette Wacky Wackers. Suitable only for sabre, however.

But the closest thing to the “real deal” has got to be the Leon Paul Mini Fence set. They have plastic masks, and weapons available in either foam or plastic.

(If you’re having video trouble, try clearing your browser cache)

MDR

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The day has finally come! Here are the designs. Please express your interest in the comments or vote in the thread at Fencing.net. The sticker with the most interest will be the one I order first! (Note: this is not an advance order, but just to gauge the sticker’s popularity. Actual stickers will go on sale at a later date.) All stickers will be approximately 4″ wide on heavy-duty UV resistant white vinyl, suitable for outdoor automotive use, and will have a white outside border.

PS, Please don’t “borrow” my designs. Fencing is a small community, I’ll probably find out. ; )

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Despite the premium on space, I can’t say enough nice things about Mid-South’s class and hospitality.  All of the referees were extremely professional, and there was the nice touch of having a selection of fruit, a plate of brownies and mixed nuts available for the fencers around lunchtime. For the refs, the armory became a miniature hospitality suite with fruit, water and soda, and lunch provided.

I was fairly happy with my performance in the pools. I felt good that morning and finished pools 4 and 1, only dropping one bout to B-ranked Adam Burkhart. I came out of that round seeded 10th, which bought me a bye for the first round of direct elimination. Next up was my friend Jim Kent. I watched Jim fence the previous round and felt that I had a good chance against him. I started out against him with a planned strategy, but found that Jim was ready for me. Seems he has an excellent memory for his opponents, and I was slow to respond. He got ahead early and I found myself fighting from behind. I tied him up at 14-14 and felt sure I could get one light to finish him off. Jim won 15-14.

Now I am more mature than I was when I first started fencing, and losing graciously, while still not a natural thing, comes easier. I was truly happy for Jim, he has worked hard at fencing and I was glad to see him move on. But of course I was disappointed, for a lot of reasons. I was hoping to at least break into the top 16. I also wanted to fence Michael Glapion, whom I know well as a referee but have not yet had the pleasure of facing on the strip. But something else concerned me. Can I ever really improve from my current level?

In the mid-1990′s, when I started fencing, I was a college student. What I lacked in money I made up for in time and dedication. Three days a week I made the half-hour drive from Athens to Atlanta to fence for three or more hours at a time and to take lessons with a world-class coach. I attended every tournament within a six-hour drive, and attended Nationals. I had strong fencers around me constantly. I had nowhere to go but up. But since 2006 I have been self-coached. I practice only one night a week, for an hour and a half, most of which is spent coaching.  I’m lucky to make one tournament a month. I doubt I will attend a national event. Now I have the money, I just don’t have the time. While my location limits some things, other sacrifices I have made willingly to reduce the stress on my family and leave time for my art. In short, I haven’t worked hard enough to earn the kind of success I want, and no matter how much I want it, it just isn’t going to happen without the work. That’s a bitter pill to swallow. But such is life: you can’t do everything you want to do. You have to make choices as to where to invest your time. Spend too much in one area and the others suffer. Fencing is tremendously important to me and will always have a place in my heart, but art is in my soul.

Thanks for reading. Peace,

MDR

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MDR

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Merry Christmas! This was a fun little experiment to make. I hope you like it!

Update: After a few reports of not being able to view the illustration, I went back and changed the picture from CMYK to RGB mode. OOPS! But at least now the background color looks better, more of a grocery-bag brown than a sickly green. If you still can’t see it, try deleting your browser cache and refresh.

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We provided the following equipment:

• 1 scoring machine, 2 reels, and 1 extension cord
• 4 masks (2 for display)
• 4 right-hand jackets in various sizes and one left-hand jacket
• 4 plastrons in various sizes
• 3 right-hand gloves and 2 left-hand gloves
• 4 dry sabres
• 2 foam sabers
• 1 electric foil, 1 french epee, 1 dry saber (for display)
• 2 fully-dressed electric epeeists
• Foam display board and literature
• Duct tape (for attaching the weapon to anyone with a weak grip)

The organizers supplied us with:

• 2 wheelchairs with brakes
• 3 tables
• 6 chairs

One table was used for the display and literature, and another to put the equipment to be used by participants. We used the last table to set up the scoring machine and reels. The weapon-side armrests of the two wheelchairs were removed and the brakes locked, to simulate fencing while locked in a frame. The two epeeists were hooked up and fenced several five-touch bouts (with myself as referee) at the beginning of our timeslot until we had drawn a small crowd of onlookers. I then took a moment to introduce myself and explain what we were doing.

With the 6 chairs set up in pairs, participants could choose to bat each other with foam swords without dressing up, or to give “real” fencing a try with the assistance of the two other volunteers. The fencers would give their students a brief lesson (from the seated position) in attacking and defending, and then give them the chance to fence a three-touch bout with their teacher. We used saber for its easy grip and light weight, but right-of-way language was left out for simplicity. The event was a success, and it exposed fencing to a diverse group of students, participants, and onlookers.

My great appreciation is extended to Salle New Bern and the ECU Fencing Club for their material support, as well as volunteers Kyler Zary and Philip Allen. I also had long-distance assistance from Gary Vanderwege of the USFA Wheelchair Fencing Task Force and Jim Murray of Johns Hopkins Fencing. Last but not least, thanks to our host Dr. Jim Decker of the ECU Department of Exercise and Sports Science. I would encourage every club to give consideration to wheelchair fencing and perhaps even to give seated fencing a try sometime. While the regulation equipment such as the wheelchair frame is cost prohibitive to most clubs, this is a simple way to give athletes with a disability a place to practice.

MDR

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The old Soviet test.

Things are about to get interesting…and a lot harder to draw! Also, I’d like to remind readers to check the Club page periodically, because I update it both as the story progresses and as I feel the need to elaborate on certain characters that may not be obvious in the story.

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