How En Garde!'s fencing earned its cinematic flourishes

During my twenties, I decided that I would start fencing.

I wasn't very strong, but I did have some quickness and agility, and I liked how fencers seemed to epitomise those last two qualities. I wasn't very good at the sport, ultimately, because fencing doesn't just require speed and agility, but also timing, distance measurement, and skill. (I also foolishly approached it as something more instinctive than cerebral.) Fencing movements, at least from my experience with a 'foil' (one of the weapons), are very small and subtle, and the best approach is sometimes a very simple manoeuvre. Someone attacks? You parry the strike by pushing it to the side just to the point where it misses, and then stick your own foil out in a riposte to their upper body. You may not even have to move your legs during such a sequence.

I didn't actually want to fence like this, though. I wanted to use dramatic and flashy movements, the kind you might see in a pleasing cinematic duel.

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