Monty vs. The Rabid Hyena: The Amateur Fencer Takes on the Master!

Drip- SPLOOSH!!

Drip- SPLOOSH!!!

Drip- SPLOOSH!!!!

Each bead of sweat sounded like a thunderclap inside the closed space of my helmet as it dripped from my chin to my chest. The air was warmer and more stifling than ever. My sword arm felt like a lead weight. My vision was beginning to swim. And in front of me, all I could hear was Monty's hearty, bellowing laugh.

Show off.

My fingers ran over the numerous depressions on my chest pad, where Monty had effortlessly planted his foil countless times over the last twenty minutes. Damn it, I thought. Some re-match this is turning out to be. It seemed that no matter how quickly I parried, how powerfully I lunged or how spry my footwork, Monty was two steps ahead of me. During our latest match, I feigned a lunge to his left, forcing him to open up his chest. As I disengaged and attempted to circle my blade to his exposed right side, Monty's foil was already planted squarely above my sternum before I was even halfway to my target. I, on the other hand, had yet to score even a single hit.

More expletives came from behind my mask.

"You, dear boy," Monty proclaimed, "are like-"

"A lazy dog! A clumsy windmill! I know! I know!"

Monty paused and smiled his white, toothy grin. "Actually," he quipped, "I was going to say a rabid hyena." I expressed my appreciation for my new title with a deep sigh of humiliation.

"But," Monty said, "I must say that you are getting faster!"At this my eyes perked up. Although Monty was a little harsh at times as an instructor, he was also just as quick to compliment students on their improvements. "Larger lunges, grizzly," he would bellow one minute at a particularly hirsute student, only to pat him on the back ten minutes later after that same student demonstrated a smooth downward parry and hit combination. "Excellent, ol' boy," he would shout, slapping Grizzly on his hairy shoulder. "No hitting like a pansy," he would glower at another student, only to then whoop and congratulate her with glee when Pansy landed a hit- a most palpable hit- squarely in the center of a practice dummy's chest.

"So," Monty said. "If you want to beat me, you have stop trying to force the blade straight through into me. Your moves are too predictable. Take, for example, our last bout," he lectured as he suddenly whipped up his foil in an elegant, distracting flourish before lunging forward. I instinctively engaged him in a parry to the left and shuffled back out of range, just as my Romanian instructor had taught me. "Good," he bellowed. "Now, think back to what your next move was." At this, I pushed his blade further to the left, exposing his chest and then disengaged from him, again circling my foil underneath his and making a beeline for his sternum. However, just as before, my own chest pad met the tip of his foil before I was even halfway there. "You see," Monty smiled. "You have to think outside of the box. Remember, you're not always confined to these straight-nosed techniques of block, hit, block, hit. Fencing is a creative art, not a mechanical one. Think...." Monty paused to circle his free hand in the air rather foppishly. "...like an artist."

I had to smile at Monty's sheer enjoyment of not only the sport, but of the flair he added to it. No matter how harsh his criticisms, he always knew how to put some class and charm into his lessons. Once again, Monty shuffled towards me, again lunging furiously towards my chest. Again, I stepped back, this time parrying his blade downward in an attempt to expose his upper torso. As soon as I saw my opening, I went in for the kill. And once again, Monty's blade stopped me dead in my tracks.

DAMN IT!

A third try with a parry to Monty's right and a lunge. Once again, Monty halted me before I could blink.

A fourth try with a parry to the left and a double disengage. And again, Monty thwarted my diabolical scheme in a whirlwind of steel and speed. "Had enough," Monty asked, noting with concern how I was beginning to tire.

By this time, I was nearly ready to pass out. I could barely stand on my own two legs. The only thing I could picture was the enormous dinner I was going to cook myself if I survived this. And that cocky son of a bitch Monty was standing there, not even breaking a sweat.

And yet....

"Again," I called. Monty threw his head back and let out an enormous bray of delight. "That's the spirit, m'boy," he yelled, twirling his sword in circles as he bounded towards me. He lunged at me twice, each time forcing me back with quick parries. As Monty went for his third lunge, I parried to the right, opening up his chest once again. Monty smiled as he calculated that I would make the same mistake. Think outside the box, I repeated. Don't just block and hit.

I disengaged Monty's foil and circled mine under his, just as before. Monty once again brought up the tip of his foil towards my chest, grinning as he predicted teaching me yet another lesson in humility.

That's when I mixed things up a little.

At the very last second, I drew my sword arm back from my usual beeline strike. Suddenly, I saw that twinkle in Monty's eyes disappear. His grin instantly vanished, only to be replaced by a furrow in his brow and a dimple in his weathered cheek as he cocked his head sideways in a moment of...what? Hesitation? Confusion? From the legendary Monty?

Whatever it was, I seized the opportunity. I circled my foil from right to left, causing Monty distraction as he struggled momentarily to block my blade. I slowed the speed of my wrist as I circled my foil under his to the left. As he followed to block, I then instinctively flicked my wrist, batting his blade away and opening up his torso. From there, I disengaged around his foil once more and drove mine forward....

...only to be met with Monty's foil clanging against mine, blocking my tip less than an inch from his solar plexis. As I looked back up, I saw that Monty was actually catching his breath! "Close," he panted, slightly unnerved, "but no bottle of scotch just yet, m'boy." And there was that white, toothy grin once again.

UGH! my mind screamed. I was so close! As we both stood back up and saluted each other, Monty straightened his back and took a deep breath, standing there, still as unbeatable as ever. "But," he remarked, "now you're starting to think outside the box. It's not anything you can practice at home. You just have to keep sparring and thinking."

As I hobbled back to the locker room, I was replaying those last moments of the match in my mind. I couldn't believe it! I was less than an inch away from settling my score! Less than an inch! I couldn't believe that he stopped me....

...but I'm getting closer, I thought with a smirk. Rabid hyena, my ass.

The Lazy Dog versus the Lethal Rabbit: Humility, Footwork and the Triumphant Return of the Amateur Fencer State-Side!

"Dear God," my instructor sighed.

She was staring wide-eyed at my awkward lunge and how precariously my foil was sent careening into the padded chest of the practice dummy before me. I looked up, expecting to see her beaming at the dynamic new stance and technique that I had melded into my fencing style after observing Ho Sum and the other wu shu students back in Hong Kong.

No such luck. "That...really sucked, Otto," she exclaimed, in her thick European accent.

Clearly, my attempt at emulating Ho Sum's prior demonstration of athletic prowess was not what I had envisioned it to be. During the plane ride from Hong Kong back to New York, I attempted to forget the constant, rumbling turbulence by focusing on the intricacies of Ho Sum's elongated stances and imagining how I would incorporate them back at the Fencing Academy, sending my instructor, Monty and the other students into a fit of gloriously jealous awe at my newfound fencing technique.

Instead, I saw my instructor now frowning at how clumsy my lunge appeared and how my foil nearly snapped in two after landing with a thud on the right side of the practice dummy's chest, when the target was on its left side. My stance was twice as wide as it should have been, causing me to nearly fall over in the middle of my lunge. My instructor cocked her head to the side. "What happened to your stance? You were making such nice progress! Did you practice at all during your vacation? This is unacceptable! And you say that you want to spar with Monty again...like that?!"

I assured her that I had been practicing in my hotel room during my vacation. I explained the magnificent wu shu demonstration I witnessed in Hong Kong and my attempt to incorporate fencing into martial arts and vice versa. I told her how I thought that a longer, more martial-arts-like stance would help my reach; or how more of a curve to my striking hand would help my speed.

My instructor simply shook her head at all this. "Learn to walk before you can run," she said, causing me to slump my shoulders in defeat as I stood up. "Come," she said, motioning to the adjacent fencing lane. "Let's get you back into it." With that, I moped over to the fencing lane, again mumbling expletives to myself while swinging my foil at nobody in particular. I sullenly assumed the en garde position, still embarrassed by the dressing-down I just received from my instructor. That's when I felt her sternly rapping me on the side of my mask to wake me up and pull me back into the present.

"Cheer up," she said, spinning her foil in smooth, circular spins, loosening the muscles in her sword hand. "Time to learn something new." I shook off my anxiety at these words. Whenever I attended these lessons, and no matter how much humiliation I took, this phrase always made the training worthwhile: Time to learn something new.

Determined to redeem myself by mastering whatever new challenge she threw my way, I regained my composure and straightened my back. "Today's lesson," she announced, "is speedy feet. Fencing is just as much about being quick on your feet as it is about being quick with your foil."

"I'm already quick on my feet," I said with a slight hint of defiance. "Really," my instructor quipped. Before I could respond, she batted my foil out of her way, lunged forward, and sunk hers into the left side of my chest. In the back of the room, I could hear Monty, who was watching us the whole time, chuckling as he taught a group of young students. "You'll need to be quicker than that if you wanna fight me again, dear boy," he bellowed out heartily.

You know what I said about shaking off the last of my anxiety? Suddenly, I felt like I needed another vacation.

"One thing Monty and I notice about you is that whenever you feign back, you always drag your feet," my instructor continued, "which slows you down and makes it easier to strike you." By way of demonstration, she assumed the en garde stance and moved to feign back just as I normally do. However, as she feigned back, she sloppily dragged her front foot across the polished wooden floor, causing the slighest of squeaks....just like I normally do. It was amazing how observant my instructor was, to the point where she could not only predict but also mimic my every movement. It was like watching a mirror image of myself...except...with longer hair and boobs.

"Your step must be lighter, with larger strides," she said, as she hopped back, lightly picking up her front foot by the heel, which added probably a good half second of speed and three inches of distance onto her retreat. There was no way she was within range of my blade. "Now you try."

She suddenly whirled her blade in a disengage to distract me and then thrust it forward at my chest. I instinctively blocked and jumped back, but I was too slow. My front foot dragged, allowing her to actually step on it and hold me in place while she brought the point of her blade just under my chin.

"You are like a lazy dog today," she yelled, loud enough for the whole class, including Monty, to hear. "You must be like...like a rabbit!" Again, this was loud enough for the whole class to hear.

Sigh.

"Again," she bellowed, as she recoiled and lunged mercilessly at my chest, not allowing me a second of breathing room. I again blocked and huffed as I sprung myself lightly back, but again, I was still too slow, lifting my front heel a second too late, allowing her to push her blade through my defense. More expletives emanated from behind my mask.

"Again," she shrieked, coming at me once more, as if her foil was magnetically drawn to my chest pad, which was now riddled with divits from the abuse it was taking. As her foil moved in for a third killing blow, I thought back to Ho Sum once again. In particular, I focused on his demonstration of how wu shu helped his fencing skills. I recalled how he smoothly scuttled his feet back and forth, darting in and out my range, without making a sound. I focused on his feet and how lithely they moved.

Then it dawned on me: Ho Sum didn't really jump back, but rather just...stepped, ever so lightly. Heel first, then toe. One quick movement.

I refocused on my instructor's blade, making a lightning beeline straight for me. I took a deep breath and just...stepped back, my back foot first, my front foot following, making sure my step was wide and landing on my heels first, then my toes. As I did so, I flicked the wrist of my sword hand downward, blocking my instructor's blade and opening up her chest. Then, without warning, I followed my gut and lunged forward in a counter-attack. Suddenly, one good move turned into two.

Why the hell not? Let's see where this takes me.

I saw my foil nearing the left side of my instructor's chest pad. My hamstrings stretched out, my biceps loosened and my heart began to race with anticipation as I realized that I couldn't miss! Ha! I was about to score my first point on my instructor, without any warning and with the element of surpr-

My instructor promptly batted my blade to the ground, causing me to fall over with it. I was sent sprawling over the gym's hardwood floor, my mask tumbling off my face and my foil rolling to the other end of the fencing lane. I turned over onto my back to look up at my instructor smirking down at me. Then, Monty's smiling mug entered the picture as he suddenly stood over me as well. Here it comes, I thought. Another dressing-down about how my stance was too wide, how my stride was too slow and how I still looked like a lazy dog rather than the lithe, lethal rabbit. I braced myself.

Instead, my instructor elegantly stuck out her hand to help me up. "Better," she said as she yanked me off the floor. "Your step was a little better that time. And your lunge was good. I almost didn't expect that," she admitted. When she saw me break out into a sweaty grin, she held up her long, thin index finger to stop me. "I said, 'almost.' "

She patted me on the shoulder. "We're done for today. I want you to practice this footwork, up and down your apartment, until your legs are tired, every day," she shouted as she walked back into her office. I unscrewed my bottle of Gatorade and took a gulp when Monty, with his impeccable timing, slapped me across my back, once again sending a wave of blueberry-flavored electrolytes and vitamins shooting up my nostrils. "We'll make a fencer out of ya yet, m'boy," he laughed heartily.

And then he was gone, leaving me standing in the fencing lane, all by myself, surrounded by the other fencers, spinning and parrying with each other as I wiped sweat from my face and envisioned the day when I would eventually be like them; when I would be able to lunge, parry, feign and spar without losing my balance, my foil or my cool.

With each lesson, I was getting closer to that point, and, despite the admonishment I received from my instructor today, it looks like I received a little help from Hong Kong after all.

Thanks, Ho Sum. M'Goi-Sai.