![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I'm not left-handed, either
Lightsabers out, everyone. Or just grab the nearest pointy object and have at it for a moment in his memory: Bob Anderson, the Olympic fencer and sword master who gave us Darth Vader and the bladework of everyone from Inigo Montoya to the Fellowship of the Ring. If you thought Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) had the best swashbuckling since Errol Flynn, he was why—his first work on film was fight-directing Flynn in The Master of Ballantrae (1953). Zorro and the Three Musketeers, too. And a couple of Bonds. Duncan MacLeod. There was only one.
no subject
Nine
no subject
Seriously, get some people together for a sword dance or something.
no subject
I'm fascinated to realise that one man was such a vital part of all of those films.
It's years since I've fenced. Did you ever?
no subject
I know! Did it come out in the last fifty years? Did it have memorable swordwork? He staged it!
It's years since I've fenced. Did you ever?
For a semester in college; I don't think it counts. What I did for years was archery.
no subject
I think it counts, at least a little bit.
I hope you don't mind that I can't help thinking of Pamela Dean's Tam Lin (1991). For some reason the idea of fencing as a class at college just does that to me; I suppose because we only had a club at mine.
My roommate and I ran the club at one point, as it happens. We used to fence in the corridor outside our dorm room as well as holding the regular meetings. It fell apart the next year, because most of the really interested people had graduated and a couple of twits who wanted to do tournaments managed to scare away anybody new who simply wanted fun, exercise, and stress relief; in other words, everyone who expressed an interest. I decided it wasn't worth fighting for, joined the SCA, and started going to fight practice once a week, whereupon I realised that fighting in the round with a practice schlager and a buckler or a dagger was much more interesting.
I'd studied fencing from middle school,* with a maître d'armes who was old enough to have begun competing before electric scoring. I think if sport fencing hadn't gone electric I might have stuck with it; one of the side effects of electric scoring seems to have been that everything I find attractive about fencing went out the window.
If there were a classical or an historical salle near to me I'd think seriously about join them, but the closest one seems to be the fechtschule at the Higgins Armour in Worcester, MA, and that's just too far to travel. I've never really clicked with the local SCA groups, and I'd really rather study truly period technique besides, with the excuse of it being writing research, of course.
What I did for years was archery.
Interesting! I've always wanted to do that. They offered it as a class at college, but it never worked out with my schedule.
Did you shoot recurve, or longbow, or...?
*It was always second to riding for me--it's hard to balance two hobbies like that if one also goes to school, works, and/or has a social life, and a large living animal that needs exercise every other day will always win out.
no subject
Olympic recurve. I was for some years the champion for my age and gender in the state.
no subject
That's brilliant.
I hope you can take it back up someday, at least if you would like to do so.
no subject
no subject
I'd be honored.
no subject
The archery is mostly just gravy.
no subject
no subject
(I have never seen her at archery, just felt the long-reaching effects.)
no subject
I'd pick impressive, myself. Then again, I grew up round members of the germane gender who could pick up a hay bale and throw it with one hand.
I have never seen her at archery...
That's a pity. (Not that I ever have done, either, it's just that a good archer is a pleasure to watch.)
no subject
no subject
I like this plan.
no subject
no subject
Yeah.
The Guardian had a memorial sequence of clips.
no subject
no subject
That is a good obituary.
no subject
I second this, as a student of both the epée and the katana. (But mostly as a Scot.)
Fare thee well, Duncan MacLeod. May the road rise to meet ye.
no subject
I didn't know that about you.
(But mostly as a Scot.)
(Fair.)
no subject
I didn't know that about you.
The epée in college, the katana courtesy of my first wife.
There is much about myself I would tell you.
no subject
no subject
Anderson's specialty was the saber.
no subject
no subject
no subject
I wouldn't have guessed either, except that I feel obscurely gratified about Pirates of the Caribbean.