«This is a good sword, Haleth son of Hama.»

Aragorn puts his hand on the shoulder of the young lad and looks him in the eye. “There is always hope.” 

Given the name of the blog, it seems only right I should quote the famous Lord of the Rings movies every once in a while, and it so happens that this part came to my mind while I was in school. 

Counting yesterday and today together I have had a total of 10 hours of physical training. Yesterday, from 13.10 ‘til 18.10 was combat, 18.10 ‘til 20.20 was fencing, and today from 09.00 ‘til 13.10 was combat. By the end of the last hour today, the muscles in my legs were trembling. By the end of these three years, I’ll be a real power woman – with both the muscle and skills to scare off anyone, so watch out world! 

It is an extreme load of fun though, despite being rather exhausting (the teachers say our bodies will stop hurting in about six weeks’ time). In combat we’re doing both unarmed theatre fighting and rapier and dagger fighting. And there is one thing I shall have you know; you feel epic when holding a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other, but you feel beyond epic when you get to swing it at your sparring partner, he parries and the blades of your swords clash together. (Granted, we can’t swing at great force, as that would endanger us and in the end break the swords, but there’s still a firm connection of the blades that will send your heart racing and lips grinning wide).  

The parts of a rapier: The end of the blade is the foible, this is the weakest point of the sword and the attacking part. It is designed to pierce through flesh, which is why it’s so thin. Even though our swords are blunted, we could still manage to penetrate each other’s skin with a direct hit. 

The middle is the centre of percussion, and the base part of the blade is the forte – this is the strongest part of the sword and the part you use to block incoming attacks (ever heard the expression “that’s (not) my forte”? This is where it derives from). 

The two rings on either side of the blade are the fingers rings (and as shown in picture 2, you hold your index finger in one ring, for better control), the two things protruding beneath them on either side are the quillons. The bow that extends across the handle is the knuckle bow, which – yes, you guessed it; protects your knuckles. You also know that if this bow is not going across your knuckles when holding the sword, you’re holding it wrong. 

Then there’s the handle, and at the end, the little round bit, is the pommel. Heard the expression “to pummel someone”? Yes, this expression comes from the rapier as well. Reason why is because the blade of the sword is so long, that if your attacker comes to close, you won’t be able to properly attack. In these cases you swing the blade of the sword back so the pommel is pointing toward your attacker and, well, pommel them in the face. Much like you see people on film do with guns. The pommel also holds the whole rapier together, as well as working as a counter weight to the blade. 

And that will be it for now. In the last picture it’s me (I’ve been told it don’t really resemble me, but it’s because I have my hair up) fighting a guy in my course called Stuart.  

Tomorrow I have Sight Reading, Acting, Movement and Articulation, so no combat, sadly. 

“If by my life or death I can protect you, I will. You have my sword...» (Aragorn, Fellowship of the Ring)