The course

I'm scared of the gym.

You know what it's like. You go there for the first time. You look around, but see only the fit, tanned, lycra-clad, muscle-bound regulars. 'God,' you think. 'I'll never look like that.'

You never see the people who are like you - the unfit, the wheezing, the perhaps-getting-on-a-bit; the first-timers.

So, self-conscious, you do a few half-arsed warm-up exercises and ten minutes on a treadmill before slinking out again, never to return - but destined to have £50 taken from your bank account every month for eternity because you're too embarrassed to tender your gym resignation.

'What's that?' the chiselled man behind the counter says, aghast. 'You're quitting? Well, it's your body…'

Sod that. I wanted to get fit my way - I wanted to go somewhere where everyone's rubbish at first! I wanted to be able to get knackered and sweaty without feeling stupid! I wanted to do a six-week introductory fencing course!

So I did.

The basics
First up, footwork. The foundation of fencing - get this wrong, and you won't get very far. Although we were all itching to get our hands on some cold steel, we spent one and a half sessions practicing moving about. Advance, retreat, lunge, advance-lunge. Monotonous, but strangely therapeutic - until you get home and your thighs feel like they've burst into flames.

Then distance work. We learned how important it is to be able to stay out of the way of your opponent's attacks, while still keeping close enough to get him/her yourself.

Finally, at the end of week two, the foils, masks, jackets, gloves and boob-protectors came out. Boob protectors for the girls, you understand. I was only trying it on purely out of curiosity.

The next couple of sessions were spent, again, on foot and distance work - this time in pairs, with lunges thrown in. It started to feel like proper fencing. But that would only really happen when we learned to defend ourselves as well as attacking.

Sitting on defence
Parries. The bit that makes you feel like Errol Flynn! There are eight, but we only learned the two most basic ones - the Quarte and the Sixte. It would seem that most fencers use only three or four parries in normal circumstances, anyway. More drills with footwork and attacks, but now with added 'ting!' sounds - great fun.

The last week was the big one: electric equipment. We were given Epees (less bendy - slightly different rules), boxes that beeped when hits were scored, and set loose on each other in a series of first-to-five-hits competitions, followed by a grand final.

It was fantastic - I'm pretty sure my footwork was the only consistent thing about my performance, though. The action was so fast that I didn't have much time to think about proper parries - it was more reflex than calculation. No matter, though! It was great fun.

After the course
So, bruised and worn out, I resolved to join the club and do it every week.

My course was a great way to get to grips with the sport. People spend years - decades - trying to master fencing, so clearly it only scratched the surface. But by breaking it down into such digestible chunks, we were all up and duelling more-or-less properly at the end of six weeks. And many of us carried on to the club.

More on that in my next post!