An Unexpected Gift

I received a surprise gift from a student the other week. She came up to me and proudly informed me that at a recent competition she had scored with an attack made down the blade from an engagement of sixte. She was particularly pleased about this as she had been practising and attempting the attack for a number of months with no success and it was doubly significant as she is mostly quite a defensive fencer, so an aggressive attack is a little out of her comfort zone. The way she described it to me it was almost as if the rest of the competition was unimportant apart from that one attack. I regarded this as a nice present because it shows that some of my teaching regarding technique and correct form might be beginning to show fruit, plus it was very refreshing to hear from someone who was keen on getting the technique right rather than just attack blindly to win. It was also nice that she took the time to tell me about it as it must have been apparent that this was important to me too. Just when you least expect it you find something pleasant on your journey...........