Monday, 10 August 2015

Académie de l’Éclair and other tales of FightCamp.

First of all congratulations to Tim Fuke on winning rapier gold. Our first scholar and a fine teacher in his own right, Tim is always notable for understating his considerable skill. Great to see him take this well deserved win.
 11822639_1005650079455338_3656833695656843640_n  *In case that isn't enough, Tim then went on to win silver in the longsword and bronze in the mixed. Please apply all the above compliments again:). Congratulations also to Ties Kool for taking gold in that event. Tim, we are proud of you.


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 I ran a dagger and a dussack workshop, both of which Iam happy to say, went down very well. I wanted to say thanks to everyone that attended, I often have issues with folk not cooperating and trying to win the drills at the cost of not understanding the technique. I went to FightCamp fully expecting this to be the case again. I was however hugely impressed with everyone in both of the classes. A huge degree of co-operation, extreme effort to give a partner the right pressure and generally working to understand specifics and minutia. This allowed both classes to cover far more than I originally intended. Brilliant work, those of you who took part can be rightly proud of yourselves, thank you.

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And finally our great tale of woe, lost hope and sadness. Or at least it could have been. Sinan (pictured here) was given a lift by two of the lovely folk from our school. Sadly mid journey his rapier left the roof of the car to become lost in the English countryside. I know that those that drove and Sinan were all secretly mortified. I had a quick chat with Marco Danelli who made the missing item, his solution "Why don't you give him the one I made for myself?" What followed was a quick dash around the students who all chipped in to cover the cost of Marco's materials and I was able to rush Sinan's new improved rapier to him on the same day. To all of my students, I am in the greatest company I could hope for.