As you may have seen from social media, I found a fencing club. One day we marketed at a 24 court badminton gym and inside the space a fencing club sublet a 4 track size space. While there the male translator helped me negotiate a price per class and we even got the price of equipment. I needed a few things to make my sword fighting ensemble complete and their price was great…for same quality material.
Three of the coaches were in the Chinese Olympics and I was taught by all 3 at some point, along with a master fencer trainer on my last session. I had 11 sessions total. Yup that means I nearly went every night I was in Kunming.
Hauling around my new equipment about half the time through 25 minute walks and subway rides.
Each session was roughly 90 minutes and cost a whopping $8. I did 7 epee trainings and started realizing that I don’t really care for it. Since it had been about 13 months since fencing in Denver, I had forgotten.
Really while in Denver I trained in all 3 because the idea was that it takes a little time to figure out what you will enjoy. Apparently you should pick one style and learn that one. Then it hit me, I really enjoyed saber. I got a price quote, negotiated it down and after comparing that price to online prices and factoring in shipping back to the states…it was determined I would purchase saber gear too.
It is by far more expensive because the metallic lame (vest) is actually long sleeve and the helmet is all metal laced too. It was a blast learning the perry repost and counter attack etc.
Did I mention they don’t speak english? Luckily the main guy Shia had a girlfriend who could translate and she showed up about half the time to help out. Another guy could direct me because he knew the jargon. Seventy five % of the time though was all body language.
Warm up exercises they had to demonstrate and they would show how I did it wrong and then what is right. It did get a bit frustrating one day because we were doing one exercise and then the coach would change or add something and I would be lost. I would try to do it slow to learn the steps and then he would be all Faster. I worked through it and enjoyed myself immensely. We even used a computer to help translate key phrases that of correction, reasoning and encouragement.
5 days a week is a bit much though, thank goodness I only was that gung-ho because of my limited time with them. A thank you letter and letter of recommendation was written and they were appreciative and sad to see me go…as was I. One night they took me out to dinner and another night I stayed late because they wanted to hear and find some popular USA music.
Bo le fencing club. Great stuff. I was so thankful that they didn’t see the communication barrier and my short stay as a complete waste of their time.
