When Talal Al Rashed came to the bazaar office and delivered the epic yarn that he was adventuring through learning to fence, before he could finish his tale, we were already limbering up in the office to join him! Training at the fencing club – @toosh.winner on Instagram, is open to ages from five years old and up, so you may be surprised who you’re training with on a trial session. Toosh was founded by Lulu Al Ayoub whose qualifications to teach are recognized internationally by the Federation Internationale d’Escrime.
Entering the hall, nervous excitement runs through you. It’s an alien world. Along the floor, thick strips of metallic mesh stretch across the hall, with sections of a couple meters at each end warning with markers where if you land on them you can be run off by your opponent. The strip is 14m long and only 1.5 meters wide. Each of these is a piste – the battleground on which you will duel. It’s thrilling to walk beside these combat zones imagining yourself, blade in hand, suited up, tall, slim and athletic all in white, light of foot, advancing and moving around your challenger with all the grace and strength of a ballet dancer. How active our imaginations are.
It’s a romantic sport to be sure, but there is a lot of movement in fencing, so our first coach, Salah AboBraika, immediately makes us run laps around the hall to warm up our stiff muscles. This is un petit peu lesse glamoreuse than I imageend. A little late to the start of the training session a couple more athletes join us…neither of them over the age of six years old, I’m sure. There are lots of sprint drills, but you can tell why; this is prepping you for swift and deep lunges, training you for a quick recovery, how to maintain your balance, strengthen your core and once more be on the attack. But, getting red in the face and huffing and puffing like one used to in primary school PE class isn’t how I pictured this day going. The competitive spirit raises its ugly head though, as I throw myself at floor cones to make sure I beat my competition to the cones. I know, they’re just kids. But that’s competitiveness for you.
Coach Salah teaches us the various terms, en garde – stance ready, marché – move forward, rompé – move backward, and he yells out drills for us to follow, moving two spaces forward, one back, forward again, back, forward, back, back… and I remember the shame of aerobics and dance classes in my youth where being so aware of my flailing body made me ruin choreographed steps. I’m sure once I’m fencing with blade in hand, it will all come to me. Just remember: shift your furthest away foot first, in the direction you’re going. Simple.
We get suited up, just with the jacket and mesh helmet for now, the most convoluted part of the process getting wired so points can be scored when we’re eventually plugged in. The helmet is fairly roomy in the front where the mesh is shaped to give you protection and space, but it’s still a little claustrophobic for me, and takes a bit of getting used to.
I’m lucky enough to be partnered for my trial with Talal’s sister, Dalal, and she proves herself to be a thoughtful and strategic swordsman. We practice first with plastic weapons just in case we go rogue with the steel ones and do ourselves, or others, some damage during an assault. At this point Lulu is coaching us and watching Dalal and I immediately get into the fighting spirit, so she swaps us out to the real deal blades and we start a bout, where Lulu keeps score. At this moment we’re not plugged in yet, but I honestly don’t trust some of the calls so it’s a relief when we do get switched on. I want the machine to tell me if I hit my opponent. There is something about knowing that there is an objectively accurate measure of when you successfully land a blow, that makes you really aggressive. At least, this was the case for me. I felt I’d been hard done by previously, losing calls in practice assaults where I felt for sure I’d won, so I was going for it this time. Dalal and I both went away with bruises we didn’t expect, but had so much fun together. I actually got attacked so quickly by Dalal at one point that I forgot how to parry, or which foot to move first, and so I turned heel and ran! My thighs were burning, my glutes were tight, and I was heavy breathing like I’d just been on a five kilometers run. It was hot inside my helmet, and Dalal and I were a bit ambitious when [after our trial was done] we said we’d bout “for another ten,” only to give up about four more bouts in. This is the perfect HIIT sport (no pun intended); it’s exercise with an element of competition. There’s camaraderie at this fencing club because there aren’t hundreds of participants as yet. It’s a small community, but so welcoming to those men, women and children, that want to give this daring, chivalrous and enticing sport a try. I cannot wait to fence again.
For more details on how and where you can try fencing, follow @toosh.winner on Instagram, or WhatsApp 9556 6901 for details.
