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.
   *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.




 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.

     
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.