Last week I wrote a list of 10 School Holiday Activities in Melbourne. One school holiday activity that was on the list was Swordfighting. This week the children, a friend and myself went along to a session at Gasworks.

The Swordfighting session was run by Swordfighters Australia and was an introduction to fencing. I was very impressed with the professionalism of the session. It started with a warm up a session and then an explanation about safety. The group of 11 boys listened intently and were eager to try out the moves explained.

The instructor explained that all terminology in sword fighting (fencing) are in French. They learnt En garde. This is the fencing position; the stance that fencers assume when preparing to fence.

The next key term to understand was Touché. This is means “Point”. It is what the sword fighter must say when a hit has been scored on him/her. To score a point in this type of sword fighting, the end of the foil must hit the chest.

Sword fighting (fencing) is a very quick sport and with the protective helmet on the children were receiving quite a work out. The instructor gave a number of short drink breaks and taught the children to leave their equipment neatly in place.

During the session safe behaviour was emphasised and when the children stopped to listen to their instructor they were taught to point their foils to the ground.

The children had a great time and seem to retain a significant amount of the information that they were taught. Sword Fighters Australia (Melbourne based) also do children’s birthday parties which I think would be fantastic fun.

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