The wrist, on Thursdays
October 16, 2025 · 3 min read
A fencing lesson is not what I had imagined. It lasts twenty minutes, one to one, with the coach in a heavy padded jacket and a mask, standing on the piste in front of you with his own épée. He offers you a situation, an opening, a blade to take, an arm left out a moment too long, and you have to see it and use it, again and again, until you no longer think about it. He calls the mistakes in German and the commands in French, and when something works he says nothing at all, which I have learned is the compliment.
Most of the lessons since June have been about one thing: distance, or Mensur, as it is called in German fencing. In épée the nearest target is your opponent’s hand and wrist, held out in front of them at the end of the arm, and the whole art of it, as far as I can see, is to stay just far enough away that they cannot reach your wrist and just close enough that you can reach theirs. A step too close and you are hit. A step too far and you are hitting air.
It is also why double touches happen. When two people attack at the same moment from the right distance, both lights come on. My coach’s cure for mine is the stop hit to the wrist. You let the other fencer begin the attack, and instead of retreating you extend your arm and take their wrist as it comes forward, so that your point arrives first. It works perhaps one time in four. When it does not, I am hit in the chest, or the double touch comes back.
Since the lessons began I have kept a second column in my notebook for the practice bouts on Mondays: how many of my touches went to the hand or wrist, and how many were doubles.
- June: 61 touches scored, 9 to the wrist, 22 doubles;
- August, after the summer break: 48 touches, 11 to the wrist, 15 doubles;
- September: 73 touches, 19 to the wrist, 17 doubles;
- October so far: 38 touches, 12 to the wrist, 7 doubles.
The trend is going the right way, my coach says, but trends are for statisticians, and in a bout what counts is the next touch. Next spring there is an open tournament for fencers over forty in Chemnitz. He has written my name on the list without asking me, which I think is the second compliment I have had from him.