Postcards from Snagglepuss
Talk about Touché Turtle setting up a challenge!
Your typically crisp Wisconsin autumnal afternoon. The fall colour is starting to change some, but within due time, things can expect to get a little more noticeable. Not to mention the mornings starting to get cool enough to get the heater on some and soup and chili to be more or less the norm.
Which, at Crazy Claws' retreat beside the legendary waters of Artificial Lake Delton, meant something of an interesting little afternoon trying out the fencing schtick with the help of no less than Touché Turtle and his canine compadre, Dum-Dum. In fact, it was the canine who suggested teaching me a few points about fencing, followed by some light-hearted sparring with the somewhat well-meaning, if screwy, turtle forever ahead of himself, it just seemed.
Even if Touché's foil was bent close to the tip; as he explained it to me once over coffee, he purchased it on the cheap from a Hollywood theatrical prop house.
It may have taken a bit of goading after lunch this particular afternoon, but with Crazy Claws, Yakky and Chopper and Pixie and Dixie looking on in some bewilderment, yours truly received a few well-placed pointers from canine and tortuga explaining some of the basic points of fencing technique. Which, to this lion, turned out being rather different than anything he was aware of (and even though I'm right-handed, for some reason, Dum-Dum was able to find a foil which was balanced equally for both hands; Touché, for his part, can vary his fencing technique to work with either hand, depending on circumstances).
Basically, the techniques Dum-Dum and yours truly practiced were those of the lunge (drawing your foil towards the opponent), the parry (trying to counter the opponent's lunge, hopefully by getting the foil out of his hand) and the parry-riposte (which can easily get to be comically theatrical at turns); at any rate, the aim is to have the foil touch the upper body of your opponent (expect the face, arms or hands).
No El Kabong am I, mind you, but after some practice lunges with Dum-Dum, it was time to put my paces unto Touché himself.
"En garde"--crouching slightly, foil upward, feet flat on the ground, knees bent, weight on the upper leg ...
"Allez!"
Which was pretty crazy, drawing forth my foil in a lunge upon Touché, whereupon, for some reason, Touché's foil slipped from his hand. Perhaps it was the sweat and anxiety on his end that made him sense what was up. Yet Touché "himself" acknowledged I did manage to attempt a good fight, short though it was. Non-professional it may have been, but, as Touché was to explain over grilled-cheese-and-ham sandwiches and tomato soup that evening, "Snagglepuss, I have to admit, couldn't have tried harder with such a teacher as Dum-Dum!"
"And I won't blame you, Touché, for having cold feet in any event."
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