Just to prove that this Blog is not just used for the Blademaster to pretend how good he is, I have to report yet another defeat that has been on the cards for a while; I knew it would happen one day, but was hoping to hold out for a few years more. In Last nights 15th anniversary tournament, I lost 5 - 4 in a superb fight to the pretender to the family crown ( not to the Welsh nephew ) but to my son Blademaster junior. Those that were watching would surely agree that this was a deserved victory, and by the applause at the end of the fight a very popular decision as well. The spectators will also be able to confirm that this fight was not thrown in any shape or form, I was certainly trying my hardest, after all the anniversary trophy was at stake, and also family pride. I was also fighting really good myself, but Phil was just fighting better, and was the better fencer.

This also gave heart to Rowdy who was my final opponent of the night. Never seen anyone in my life come out of the traps as fast as he did, so looks like fights in the future could be getting harder. Time to step up another gear.

 Congratulations to Phil for the time being, I will soon want my crown back. As for the tournament itself, some great fights took place on every piste. The results have yet to be confirmed due to a miscalculation in the scorecards...I will put down to tiredness at the end of the fights for the basic errors being made on the score cards and the final adding up. Hey we are fencers not mathematicians.

Thanks to all that took part. PS. Prize for the person who can name the title quote.

This is just a quick note to see if this blog can be posted, as the web page it is linked to has a temporary fault. Unfortunately the web hosts have lost all my account details and I am unable to update the web page at the moment. They are working hard to resolve the problem. In the meantime it is very hard to advertise for a new fencing course, and with work commitment it is most likely the next course will now start in the new season in September.

Hope the web page will be back up and running properly soon. The web page can still be viewed as normal, and all the links work, just some of the info may be a little out of date.

 I could not let this date pass without some form of Blog. Although very busy at work with no time for Fencing what so ever, I just had to make some comment on how it all began.

May 11^th 1994 saw the start of come and try sessions at the Castle Sport Complex.

 Initially the sessions were for anyone over the age of 14. They were an immediate success, and students were quickly persuaded the class should be formed into a recognised club. Ten weeks after the start of the come and try sessions, it was agreed a club should be formed.

Being the local Custodians of the Art OF Fencing, the Custodians Fencing Club was Born.

Hard to believe it was 15 years ago that the club was set up, and I hope to organise some form of celebration very shortly.

Been off line for a while celebrating the return of the Blademaster to the piste with convincing victories over Zippy and more importantly the Baron. ok it was 14 - 15 in my favour, but that still counts as a damn good good thrashing.

Really busy off piste at the moment hence the pause in my babble.

Family honour has been restored with the prodigal daughter returning to the Custodians fold this week after a five year absence, with Son and Daughter fighting it out for the family league table. This means the family order of play has slightly changed, with Blademaster at 1, the Boy at 2, the girl now at 3, the family cat at 4, and nephew the 32" blade that has represented Wales at International level still propping up the family Table at the Bottom.

After being thouroughly thrashed by the Baron last week, my thoughts returned to the time many years ago when the Baron first beat me. Unlike his latest Victory, I can confirm that on this occassion I did let the Noble Baron soil his blade upon my person without too much defence. I refer from my book ' Tales from the Piste.'

The Baron and I were invited to do a fencing demonstration at a local school as part of their healthy lifestyle week. After the demonstartion the pupils were then given a chance to have a go at fencing. As there was about 400 pupils to get through, the sessions went on all day with various groups.

Instead of just doing a boring talk to our captive audience, I came upon the idea to start an argument between ourselves that would lead to a duel, and of course the customary etiquuette at the end of the fight.

Standing at the front of a hall full of teachers and pupils, the Baron had cunningly left his bag exactly where I was to stand.

 None of the pupils knew whose bag it was, and I started to moan how stupid and dangerous it was to leave it there, and that whoever was responsible should move it.

Cue the Baron : It was his bag, and when I suggested he move it, the reply was to move it myself. This esculated into an argument and resulting duel.

Once the Baron had beat me with the Foil, I would exit stage right and return with an Epee, as did the Baron. After he beat me with the Epee, I would exit stage left and retrurn with the Sabre, as did the Baron.

On the final beating, the customary shaking of hands took place, and of course the removal of the Barons bag by the defeated coach, and then at last to the business in hand.

As the day wore on, and more and more groups passed through the hall, we both really started to get into the role of our little pantomime. In the end our argument was so convincing ( at least to teachers and assistants ) they were so worried what they had brought into their school, they were on the point of absolute panic until the truth dawned. Never for once fooled the kids though.

Still remains one of my greatest memories of fencing, I just wish the Baron didn't count these victories in his record book.

One of the most important members of our Club is George the Pin Cushion. Named after an old club member, has helped many a fencer and epeist with their point control.

He now has a rival in the name of Token that hails from the Welsh lands of Aberyswyth. Token is even armed. If any one has any more photos of Dummies, please pas them on.

Thought I would play about with technology and develop the foil cam, sabre cam and epee cam. As you can see from the results, apart from the epee cam, the technolgy needs a bit of refining. I supposed it works on the epee as nothing much happens, whereas the other weapons are a bit more active.

This experiment reminds me of an old fencing coaching joke.

 To train fencers to react you burst a ballon behind them. With a foilist, when the balloon bursts, the foilist does an imediate explosive lunge. The epeeist waits a few moments, considers the best option available then lunges, the sabreur turns round and belts you one.

It looks like the Blademaster will now be returning to fence with the Epee. No I am not turning to the dark side, I have just checked my fishing Licence and the season finishes Sunday. Won't have any more time to go fishing so might as well strip the line and reel off the epee and use it for fencing. Still think fishing is a better use of an epee.

I know the nick name Mad dog is not one of the most original names, and most clubs probably have one or have had one in the past. The most famous one I know that comes to mind at this time of writing is the England Rugby Union Flanker Lewis Mad Dog Moody.

However, how our mad dog got his name is probably more original than most and has absolutely nothing to do with his temprement. The name was actually given by members of the Kings Lynn fencing club where mad dog also trained.

I believe that it came about while refreshing their fluid levels after training. Martin the Mad Dog found himself in the company of Southern Softies that had found it a tad hard to get round his northern Hull accent.

Martin was trying to explain that a previous injury to his ankle had surprisingly not caused him any discomfort during the fights that night, or as Martin put it,' I was surprised that my dodgy ankle didnt bother me tonight'.

All that the fellow fencers could make out was something about Mad Dog Uncle, and not ma dodgy ankle said with a Northern accent.

After a few minutes asking who the mad dogs uncle was, slower louder talking and exchanging words like dodgy with injured, the sentence started to make sense. To everyones amusement it became clear ma dodgy ankle was reference to an injured limb and not a canine relative.

When the story was retold, time and time again at our own after fight committee meetings, it was agreed that the Kings Lynn boys had created the perfect nick name for our Northern Mad Dog.

Having spent the day sorting out the web page with a technical hitch, I thought about some of the comments from the unofficial Face book page of the Custodians fencing club. Here I found a comments discussion on the nicknames attributed to some of our members.

 This Blog is about how the Baron came to get his name. Or at least my version of events.  No doubt the Baron will correct me at some point.

During a committee meeting after a fencing session, ie Drinks in the Bar, I was telling Tony V. ( AKA the Baron ) about my interest in tracing My family tree, and how I had managed to get back to 1775, and found to be of good old peasant stock.

He said he had also traced one of his distant relatives  back to around 1700, Baron Charles Mohun.

Instead of being completely bemused by this relavation ( you forget I am an educated Man ) I replied ' not the Dog of Havoc 'that contributed to Fencing being outlawed in Britain.

As I remember from my studies, Baron or Lord Mohun was involved in a particularly unpleasant Duel around 1712 in Hyde Park with the Duke of Hamilton. More of a free for all rather than a chilverous affair from accounts from the period, to which I believe both parties died.

Having already named a member of the club 'Mad Dog' ( future Blog ), it was deemed one dog too many to be called the Dog of Havoc. So the Baron was Born. If He is a distant descendant of the Dog of Havoc, this could explain his style of fencing on the piste.

This Blog has proved more popular than I could have imagined. It gets bad when more than one person ( well 2 actually ) ask why I haven't written for over 2 weeks. Is it really that long. Surely I dont work that hard.

Anyway, having just finished a fine glass of Laphroaig, (Whisky). Another idea has enetred my head for another book. ( You must have read my others)

Working title is 101 Golden rules of Fencing. This is not about the rules of fencing. We all try and cheat on those. Its more on why we fence, equipment, thoughts, idealology, sportsmanship, etc.

Now the alcohol is kicking in the first problem is I only have about 50 golden rules. If my maths is correct thats over another 50 to go.

Here's how you can help. If you have any thoughts on a golden rule for fencing please let me know. Any rule published will of course be recognised and duly attributed to sender. Unless I already thought of it. ( Royalties remain with me).

So if you would like to be partly published, send your ideas on a post card to the usual address.

Some of these Golden rules may be given an airing in these Blogs or in the Newsletters sent to memebrs of the Custodians FencingClub. 

The photo of 'stop hit from the Blademaster' has been used for quite a while as one of the clubs promotions for fencing. Mainly due to not many photos being readily availble in the pre digital age. The photo was taken at the Lincolnshire County Foil Championships, a semi final between myself and club Captain Clive Shardlow. Another fencer from the club had just bought a new top of the range camera and was keen to try it out. Of the few photos that were of any use, just hapened to be one of a perfectly landed stop hit. What the picture doesnt tell is that it was only one of five hits I managed to score against Clive, who absolutely tore me tp pieces and won the fight 15 - 5.

Of course as his coach I would have to take some credit. The night before the match we had a fight where I absolutely destroyed Clive. This was mainly due to a bad habit of wiggling his unsword hand fingers just prior to an attck. This meant I knew exactly when Clive was going to launch his attack, and of course I was more than ready for him.

We worked on some techniques that would stop this from happening.

During the semi final fight I was desperatley waiting for this flaw to return., but to no avail, and Clives cleverly disguised attacks had me floundering. Still to date my biggets ever defeat. I am happy to put the record straight....but for sheer devilment the photo remains.

   Welcome to the Blademasters new Fencing blog. The idea is to give fencers some more background information and behind the scene news of the Custodians Fencing Club. Tere will be information on how the fencers got their club nick name, stories behind the photos, and other such useless information that takes up valuable web space.

It may also give my personal thoughts on fencing, along with the benefits of this great sport. Updates will be sent to members direct.

Bye for now.  The Blademaster.