Fencing - As in the Kind You Do With a Sword, Not a Barrier Between You and Annoying Neighbors

A long time ago in a ghetto far, far away, there was a guy that taught with my mother.
I annoyed the living shit out of him.

Every football game, every school function, I would walk up to him and say "Why????" and he would answer "Why not?" and then we'd repeat. For hours.

I never claimed I was a good child.

Plus I was all of five. Give me a little credit.

If you fast forward 13 years, Mr. WhyNot was still teaching with my mother, only his classroom had moved next to hers.

And Oliver was completely fascinated by him.

It must be genetic.

I have no idea really what Mr. WhyNot teaches all day long, Marine Biology maybe, but after school, the time that Oliver would go see Grandma on occassion, Mr. WhyNot changed clothes and became the high school fencing coach.

Keep in mind, that as soon as Oliver understood what was going on around him and had enough fine motor control to grasp things, every object that came to hand was a sword.

So Mr. WhyNot's afternoon practices were freaking amazing to him. It also helped that he had some blow-up foils that he would let Oliver play with.

And then he mentioned to Oliver that he could begin actual fencing lessons when he turned 8.

So we did.

And he loves it, as I knew he would.

But as I've said before, I hate it.

It's a very disorganized little group and they change practice locations and times without letting you know, plus the practice is late in the evening and that sucks balls.

But it is really amusing to watch the little kids fence.

The haven't gotten those graceful steps down yet, so mostly they flail around waving swords and trying to whack one another. And they jump all over the place trying to imitate the graceful steps of the older kids..

It's hilarious. Usually it ends up with one of them practically chasing the other across the gym..

Here's a picture from Oliver's first tournament..




Like I said, he loves it. No idea why.

But we will continue with the damn fencing lessons. Though sometimes it feels to me like they are payback from Mr. WhyNot to me for all those stupid questions.