In tonight’s smallsword group we again practiced Angelo’s salute, then revised the Volte and Demi-Volte which we covered last week. We then held a King of the Hill tournament where each fencer started with 5 ’lives’. If you were hit you lost a life, if you hit your opponent you stayed on, if both fencers were hit in the same tempo both lost a life and a new pair took to the piste. When you lost all your lives you were out of the game.
Feedback from the fencers indicated that this idea of loosing lives made them more defensive in their approach. We also learned that judging smallsword is very difficult! Apollon came out the winner with one life remaining, beating Phil in the final head to head. Leigh came an honourable third. We ended the session with a period of Freeplay.
