I’m back at fencing far more regularly than I have been for ages. As you know, I’ve been doing it on and off, but I’m now really trying to get back into it, enter competitions and do all that kind of jazz.

I’ve had a really, really good time working with a new coach, who has helped me identify the core things that are wrong with my fencing. All the really good fencing instructors I’ve had over the years have already known these things, but this is more a case of properly identifying and understanding them inside my tiny mind. I’m also adding one of my own.

So, what is wrong with my fencing?

1. My sword-arm shoulder

I tense up and use my shoulder when I should use fingers and wrist. This also means I start to hunch over like Igor. which makes my aim even worse.

How will I fix that? Practice and repetition with a target board.

I already have the timing and scoring kit I got for my birthday, so I practise for a minute at a time. Tap, tap, tap, tap. I need to keep practising until my arm is strong enough and my shoulder is relaxed enough to do it for a full minute without starting to hunch and use my shoulder for every movement.

2. I don’t sit down properly

I don’t move properly because I don’t sit down properly over my back leg.

Again, this is a bad habit I’ve had for ages, but it is now easy to identify and is another straightforward issue that can be improved through strength and repetition.

I don’t even need other fencers to work on it. Squats, skipping and all that kind of stuff will help me become strong enough to fence with my knees bent and my pelvis level.

This was a strange one because I had already partly recognised it, but I hadn’t really believed it. But when I injured my leg, I couldn’t put much weight on my front leg. which meant during practice I had to put most of my weight on the back leg.

Suddenly, my aim improved ten-thousandfold, which was highly embarrassing. Imagine becoming better at fencing when one of your legs doesn’t work.

3. Distance and timing

Yes, distance and timing is an incredibly broad area.

But it turns out I only have two brain cells.

I have a slow brain cell that knows what it is doing when I practise. I also have a fast brain cell that handles instant reactions.

Unfortunately, my fast brain cell is hardwired to perform only a few actions. That is why I am easy to fool and easy to draw into reacting.

I don’t mind that. What I have to do is reteach my fast brain cell some of the things that my slow brain cell already understands.

Again, this is purely repetition and practice. I might not even need other fencers to do it. I need to practise distance and repeat the correct movements until my fast brain cell performs them automatically instead of returning to the same old bad habits whenever I get flustered.

4. Fencing must not become a chore

This is the one I have only just properly realised.

If I treat all of this as work, I will stop going fencing again.

I have enough chores and work in the rest of my life. My hobby does not need to become another one.

If the choice is between relaxing, having fun and enjoying my fencing while losing, or sitting there like a muggins, stressing over everything, taking it far too seriously and winning, I prefer to just lose.

I’m going to enjoy myself and try to fix one thing at a time.

I don’t even know the correct term for this, but my personal trainer and I have started to call this thing “body cheating”.

Body cheating happens when you focus only on the final goal. You complete the task in any way that you can, rather than use the correct technique.

And how does this work with fitness? Well, for example, you use poor form to reach a gym goal. Burn the target number of calories on a spin bike, lift a heavy weight, or score a hit in fencing. You achieve the result, but you do not complete the movement correctly.

This sounds stupid when I write it down, but I do it very often. However, I do not mean to do it. I just focus on the goal and make my body find a way to achieve it.

The purpose of this post is to warn other people who train in the same way. It is easy to believe that the end justifies the means.

This approach worked when I was in my twenties and thirties. It even worked during most of my forties. Not perfectly, but I still performed well.

However, it has caused problems in my late forties and early fifties.

In my case, my core is not particularly strong, and my hips are very inflexable. I compensate for these weaknesses with effort from my shoulders and large, full-body movements to produce the strength and speed that I need.

Now I am paying for it.

My hips are stiff, which makes my movements slower. My weak core has also contributed to several painful back problems.

My fencing becomes much worse when I am tired. This is particularly true when my core is feeling it. I try to compensate by bending forwards and hunching over. This changes my position and affects my aim.

I am now starting a period of remedial training. It will probably continue for at least six months. I must complete movements correctly and stop using my stronger muscles to hide my weaknesses.

As a result, performance has fallen in almost every area.

My spin-bike performance is poor because I cannot hunch over the handlebars. Fencing is suffering because I cannot use unnecessary effort to force each movement. I depend on muscles that I have not trained correctly.

Muscles that are my weakest link.

We cannot ignore them and return to using bad habits. We must train the weak muscles until they become strong enough to do their proper job.

This will be an interesting journey, and it will help me in the long term.

So this is a warning to anyone who thinks, “I do not need to use the accepted technique. I will do it in the way that feels best to me.”

That approach does not work forever.

People teach correct technique for a reason.

Form is important.

After nearly two decades, I can finally get back to what this blog was originally written for: posts about fencing, and more particularly, competitions.

This was my first competition in, yes, about twenty years. I was back on the piste at the Cambridge Open 2026. I was advised to do this one because it was relatively small and because it was a good way to start the year with a bang.

A lot of things have changed, and a lot of things have stayed exactly the same. The format is pretty much identical, although things do seem far better run than I remember. There were far fewer mistakes, and everything was kept up to date online, which made the whole day feel much smoother.

The competition consisted of two rounds of pools, an incomplete 128 DE, and then the normal direct eliminations. I made it into the last 32, in fact number 32 exactly, which was far better than I had hoped for. I would have sulked if I had failed to get into the 128, and satisfied with the last 64, but a 32 is genuinely brilliant.

Points-wise, everything now happens within a week rather than months, as it used to. I now actually have a ranking, which is 247th in England. This apparently already gives me a NIF of one, which surprised me, as I thought the requirements were higher than that. Either way, a fine start.

As for the fencing itself, I was weaker in the pools than I wanted to be. I am still trying to stop old bad habits from coming back, and my most common ones are overexcitement, not pointing the end of the sword at people, and instead just charging in. I am also reducing the amount of footwork I do and being more progressive, essentially just pushing forward.

I am never going to be good at footwork, so concentrate on better bladework and timing. I have realised that all I want is to get into actual sword distance; everything else just feels like a boring waiting game to me. So let’s lean into that and see how it goes.

My DE’s were average, and I was lucky on the first 2. I let a lot of hits go that I should not have done, but for a first competition back, that was not massively unexpected.

In the 128, I was one period in and ruining it in exactly the same way I always screw up these things. But in the first break, Chris Houser wandered past and said, “You do know that the point is supposed to go towards the other person? ”, and being older and far less excitable than I used to be, I groaned, “Oh, yes.” and made the correction.

From that point on, I limited myself to simple attacks and straightforward moves. That suddenly turned the fight around and transformed what was going to be a trouncing into a victory, much to my surprise.

In the next fight, I decided to do exactly the same thing. Keep it simple. No overexcitement. Just constant pressure and straight attacks. Probably more brutal than elegant, but this website is called “StickFight”, not “Conversation Between Two Blades”.

The final fight was far better than I thought it was going to be. My opponent was ranked fourth in the competition and should have destroyed me. In the end, he beat me 15–12. That is a far better result than I expected, although I stupidly thought I was getting a good grip on the fight. I was progressing well, but again got overexcited and started pushing without thinking, which made me easy to predict.

I am taking these observations back to my coach, Anna Anstal ¹, who I am really enjoying working with. I specifically looked for someone who could teach me as if I were a child, and she does exactly that. She focuses on pure basics, identifies my bad habits very quickly, and actively fixes them.

Physically, I had a couple of moments where my lungs hated me and a few slightly woozy periods. I think the solution here is overnight oats, a small breakfast, then sticking to water rather than energy drinks, with small mouthfuls throughout the day. There is plenty of fat on this old body to get me through a competition, and I want to avoid upsetting my digestive system as much as possible.

As always, my swords behaved impeccably.

That is it for this one. The next competition will be the Invicta, and I will post about that too.

1. +44 7493 205766[↩]

I regularly do spin classes, typically twice a week, every week, and I’ve been consistent enough to invest in my own spin bike. Spin has become a core part of my cardio routine, but recently, I’d started experiencing persistent pain in my lower right back. Initially, I chalked it up to getting older or perhaps overdoing it.

However, during a recent consultation, my personal trainer wasn’t convinced that age alone was the culprit. After thorough examination and a series of unusual exercises, he suggested something I’d never even considered: the pedals on my spin bike might be too close together.

Following his advice, I purchased two pedal spacers to widen the stance on my bike. These simple 16 mm spacers cost only £23 and took me just five minutes to install. During my next spin session, the impact of this small adjustment was incredible.

Like many people, I have a dominant side that’s significantly stronger, especially pronounced because of my fencing activities. Due to my pedals being too close together, my feet were slightly angled inward rather than aligned vertically. This misalignment caused my stronger leg to dominate, forcing the weaker leg into awkward compensations, ultimately contributing to my back pain.

Since installing the pedal spacers, my back pain has vanished entirely. Even during intense sessions, I no longer experience cramps, and my overall pain during workouts has dramatically decreased.

If you’re experiencing similar back pain and discomfort from your spin bike workouts, especially if you’re larger or taller than the typical spin enthusiast, consider checking the spacing of your pedals. A minor adjustment could lead to substantial relief, transforming your spin experience and keeping you pain-free.