Fencing club, Mahidol university, Thailand in 1994 #3

I am not so sure if anybody who read my blog would consider going to the sport club on your weekend while you are in the college is a fun thing to do. But for me, HELL YEAH! I loved doing that even I was not good about fencing and got soooooooooo tired every single week. Imagine I loved wearing this cool practice suit in the steaming hot gym and you would not believe that.

Picture credit from GooGle search engine

I know not everybody would feel comfortable wearing this suit and must imagine how hot you would be in that outfit. But we had fun and practiced real hard during that time with the hope we would win in the competition. As I mentioned earlier that there are quite a few of the competitions for the college kids like us all year long until the biggest tournament of a year, right? For sure, we practiced that hard for the big day and hope we could get something from there.

Picture was taken around 1994 and belongs to Ms. Joanna Ainscough

The picture above shows my club mate who practiced Seber and only the guy in the left of the picture that were not the same age as me. They all were medicine doctor and now as far as I know, the one in the middle is a medical director or a president ( not sure which word fits better) of the hospital somewhere in Thailand. I am so proud of him though.

Picture was taken around 1994 and belongs to Ms. Joanna Ainscough

In this picture is a friend of mine who practice Epee with my senior club mate who was in the last year of the medical school by that time. Once you are in the last year of medical school you pretty practice and learn as a doctor. They needed to be on the floor, they needed to be in the operation room, they needed to be on call. Plus, they also have to take a lot of tests and submit a lot of reports. But for their club mates especially in the competition days like that. At least a couple of them must came to help us getting dress or driving around to find food to feed us. Can you imagine how busy those guys would be? He even came to help and cheer us in the medical student uniform. How nice!!!

Picture was taken around 1994 and belongs to Ms. Joanna Ainscough

This is another club mate during that time and he was the senior friend who practiced Epee. In the picture above, he was about ready for the competition. He was a good fencer for me and I think he still practicing as the great doctor somewhere in Thailand.

Picture was taken around 1994 and belongs to Ms. Joanna Ainscough

Fencing is always fast and intense. Everything happens in only a second. You need to be very strong and fast. On top of that you also have to think fast and learn how to read your competitor's mind in order to win. Too bad I did not have picture of myself in the fencing suit and on the competition matt though. I can't imagine how many pictures I would have if I was in the club today. I may not have enough data space in my computer to keep them all.

Fencing Club, Mahidol university, Thailand in 1994 #2

Not only seeing the swords, masks, gloves, and some more fencing stuff on the table in the enrolling day. But that weekend I was invited to go to the competition at Chulalongkorn university also. Can you imagine how impressed I was that day? I was amazed form all of those amateur fencers that day who practiced so hard to be in the battle field.

VDO credit from YouTube

Can you imagine how many time that I was in a jaw dropping moment with the competition that day? Ooooooh... MY HEAVEN! I think it was countless! If you watch the clip closely, you will see a lot of movements, postures, attacking moments, and defensing strategies which for me, they all are sooooo beautiful. So? So what? Definitely, I went to practice the next weekend at Siriraj hospital.

I also saw fencing in the movie and that day it was " The Three Musketeers " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Musketeers  which is one of the most classical kid stories. They did the fencing and also showed the nice postures in it a lot. Plus, these kinds of swords are the ancient sword for the warriors in those days.

Picture credit from GooGle search engine.

Another childhood memory about fencing is " The Mask of Zoro" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mask_of_Zorro even it was not the one that stared by Antonio Banderas  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Banderas and Catherine Zeta Jones  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_Zeta-Jones. But imagine after all of that practicing and those years that I was in to the fencing, how many times I smiled while I was watching the movie in the theatre??? 

Picture credit from GooGle search engine.

It was quite longtime after I graduated from university that I had the chance to see that sexy postures with the sword as a fencer again. Don't you think the way they were fighting in the movie or fighting the bad guys are sexy? No? You are weird!

Another movie that my charming handsome old man took an action with the fencing fighting was " 007Jamese Bond, Die another day"  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Another_Day. That episode got Pierce Brosnan  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierce_Brosnan, my sexy and wise actor stared as 007, the world most attractive spy.

VDO credit from YouTube

I just love fencing so much I guess. I still living on a big hope to get back to practice the fencing again. But for now only talking about it I already put a million of big smiles to my face.

Let talk about the posture we need to practice a lot for now. As I mentioned last post about the fencing, it was a repeating fundamental of fencing that we need to do a lot as the routine warm up. 

Picture credit from GooGle search engine.

The picture above shows the posture that could compare to " lunge post"    http://www.wikihow.com/Do-Lunges with attacking feeling. You must have to practice this posture MANY times with your imagination in the air to stretch off you legs and arm. Then you would practice with the dummy in the same posture to get yourself learning how to aim the goal which is your competitor. Not only throw your sword into the air in front of you. That would be my answer about the frequent we needed to practice with this posture both of by ourselves and with the dummy. It is not only anywhere you could raise up your score on the competitor's body in the certain type of sword.

Picture credit from GooGle search engine.

See how you would get score by attacking? If you notice you would also see the " lunge post" in action with the fencing as well. Imagine how important of crazy routine practice warm up now, do you?

Fencing is a sport that you could choose what type of sword you would like to enjoy. When I was young in the university, as I mentioned I was very skinny and I am sure I could call bonny. I chose to fight with " foil "  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foil_(fencing) If I remember it right, the reason I was chosen to be the foil fencer was I was pretty tall with long arms for another foil fencers in Thailand.

Picture credit from GooGle search engine.

Guess what? If I could choose or if by that time they had no rules for the girls I would chose to be the Sabre fencer. Simple because it was very fun and not so much rules to remember. You could pretty much get score from anywhere of your competitor's body.

Picture credit from GooGle search engine.

It is a picture of  Alina Komashchuk (L) of Ukraine and Yana Egorian (R) of Russia compete in the women's sabre team final during the 8th day of the 2013 Fencing World Championships in Budapest, Hungary on Aug. 12, 2013. Ukraine beat Russia 45-44 winning gold medal. (Xinhua/Attila Volgyi)

I still remember the days that we practiced together and of course, the days that I went to the club only for chitchat and practice nothing. Then went out for dinner with my friends. No, don't say that you never  done that. I know you have done that many many times, haha...