Training in March and April 2012

The lastest times can be found here.

Please note that the University Club will be closed on the 5th of April for Easter and so there will be no session then. The "extra session" mentioned for March has yet to be determined, and information will be sent to the mailing list at a later date.

Training in 2012

Training will start on the 5th of Jan.; the full details are available in the usual place. N.B. there will be no head instructor available on the 9th of Feb. due to the Dreynevent, so please keep an eye on the list to check what alternative arrangements are made.

Prize playing results

The prize playing previously described here was conducted last night. There was a good turnout of eight students, close to the capacity of the salle, and so there was insufficient time to play both weapons. However, a good contest was had with the small-sword and there was time for a small amount of free fencing afterwards. The winners were as follows:

1st: Dan Hemmens.
2nd: Ian Chilvers.
3rd: John Raynor.

The bouts were fought as a pool, with each competitor winning at least one bout and Mr. Hemmens winning all seven of his.

Prize Playing

In English martial arts, a "Prize Playing" usually means an event equivalent to a grading, performed by means of bouts during which the candidate for promotion has to demonstrate that they can fight at the level required of someone of the higher grade. Sir William Hope seems not to have used grades in his school, for which I am grateful as I don't like them and can thus cite precedent for not using them, but he did advocate the playing of a prize.

Hope's rules for the prize can be seen here. We don't follow these exactly, but we follow the general idea. That is, that the prize playing is a yearly contest between all the students during which the winner will take away some sort of trophy or token. This varies, depending on what I've managed to purchase that may be appropriate. As we're not based at Linacre College any more I don't tend to buy bottles of Linacre sherry, which is probably a great relief to winners as it was of rather poor quality.

Fencing for the rest of 2011

The LSD timetable has been updated, so please refer to www.sirwilliamhope.org for more information.

Please note that the prize playing will conclude training for this year; more information on next year's training will be forthcoming later, so keep an eye on your e-mail.

September and October 2011

The timetable has been updated again.

Please note that the same arrangement will be used from month to month, so even if I forget it should be possible to work out what's on.

Training, July and August 2011

The details for training have been updated, and are as follows:

July:

7th, 14th - small-sword.

21st - back-sword.

28th - pugilism.

August:

4th, 11th - small-sword.

18th - back-sword.

25th - pugilism.