Welcome to 2024! I hope you had a great winter holiday with friends and family, and enjoyed our mini-winter break.
With the new year often comes resolutions — even with fencers. A lot of us embark on the 30 in 30 program to get back into the swing of things.
For those who haven’t done it before, 30 in 30 is the idea of spending 30 minutes a day for 30 days working on fencing. It can be anything from partner drilling to solo drilling to exercising or reading a fencing book, etc. Anything that you can relate to fencing counts.
And, honestly, if all you can do is like 5 minutes one day, it’s still something. Doing something as simple as some mirror work to check your form when on guard and lunging is useful XP. There’s also this nifty Fencer Footwork & Reaction app that you use. It’s a great way to jumpstart the year.
To help folks with their own 30 in 30, this entire month’s newsletter will be focused on training you can do from the comfort of your own.
I’ll be logging what I do every day on the Academie Discord. My main goals will be reading based — going through Philibert de la Touche’s fencing manual and getting back to Dr. William Gaugler’s “The Science of Fencing.” But I’d also like to shoot another training video and put a little more focus on my own training as a competitor.
We shall see what the month brings!
Best,
—Justin
Head Coach
Boston Academie d’Armes
(he/him)
