“There's a fencing analogy for that"*
Fencing changes your brain. Okay, I don't have neurological proof for this (yet), but I do know that since I have been fencing, it is difficult not to see my everyday interactions off the strip in terms of fencing. I would be tempted to call these "lessons for daily life" if that did not seem to imply that one could somehow take these observations and "apply" them without having to fence. I see what I see because I am fencing. Friends who do not fence are often mystified by what I am talking about. For example, fencers talk about "keeping distance". Now, I am by no means sure that even yet I know what this means, at least in the sense of being able to do it, but one of the things that I think it means is the sensation one has of pushing or being pushed. One fencer is moving in a way that forces the other to respond. Visually, at least to those who do not know how to keep distance, this can simply look like one fencer moving forward while the ...