When I first started fencing, the class that Katherine taught at the YMCA met only once a week. That simply wasn't enough for me. So once I got at least a precarious handle on what was going on, I started teaching various friends of mine who were interested so I would have someone to practice with and fence with. [Side note: I learned, with both fencing and the guitar, that one of the best ways to learn something is to have to get it organized in your own mind so you can teach it to someone else.]

I had a fencing buddy named Bruce. Both Bruce and I had girl friends. My girl friend was Claire, who had recently become avidly interested in folk music, was teaching herself to play the guitar, and when she learned a new chord or two, she would teach it to me. She had a beautiful old parlor guitar she had inherited from her grandmother, and I had recently bought a super-cheap, $9.95 guitar made of apple-crate wood, but it was tunable and easy enough to play. We were both learning songs (this was about 1952, and the very beginning of my interest in folk music). Claire was also interested in fencing, and I had just started teaching her.

And Bruce was teaching his girl friend, Sherry, to fence. He had been teaching her for about six months.

For reasons too long to go into, Bruce's folks were going out of town for six months and he had to go with them. He asked me to take over teaching Sherry. I was trustable on that score because, although Sherry was cute and a real sweetie, my affections were solid tied up with Claire. Anyway, Bruce was off to Alabama, so I wound up giving fencing lessons to both girls (we were all in our very early twenties, by the way; although I think Sherry was a tad younger, maybe nineteen).

Bruce fenced French school and that's the way he was teaching Sherry. I fenced Italian school (actually, a sort of hybrid style), and that's the way I was teaching Claire. And I began teaching Sherry the same way. She was agreeable to the slight change in style.

Six months later, when Bruce returned, he watched Sherry fencing for a couple of minutes—noticed that, in the guard position, her legs were bent a bit more, her body was more profiled toward her opponent, her sword arm was a bit more extended, she was using an Italian foil instead of the French foil she had retired to a corner of her closet, and when she lunged, it was long, low, and all-out. And Bruce went up in flames!

"What the hell have you done to her!??" he wanted to know. "You've ruined her! She's fencing all wrong! She'll never be able to fence well now—" and on and on. He continued ranting and raving and throwing things and kicking dogs and such, generally indicating that he was not happy with the way I had taught her and felt that, as a fencing teacher and friend, I had betrayed his trust.

Well now. . . .

Bruce had arrived back in town a week before Sherry, Claire, and I, along with Katherine Modrell, her husband Bill, and several other Seattle fencers were due to go to Vancouver, B. C. and compete in the annual Pacific International Fencing Tournament. Bruce hadn't had a chance to fence with anyone while he was in Alabama, and along with being way rusty, he was so upset with Sherry and me that he decided not to go, even just to watch. Even if this was Sherry's first competition.

There were entrants there from Seattle, Spokane, Pullman, Portland, Vancouver, and Victoria, and maybe a few other places as well. Claire was a real newcomer to competitive fencing, and I had initial apprehensions that she was not really quite ready yet. But I was rather proud that she made the finals in the Women's Junior Foil. And she made it as far as the intermediate pool in the Women's Open.

The startling phenomenon at this tournament was Sherry, this kid who was also putting in her first appearance. Small (maybe 5'2") and quite slender, she didn't look all that impressive—until she came on guard and went into action. She dominated each of the bouts she fought, rolling over her opponents, and proceeded to win the Junior Women's by a wide margin. That surprised a lot of people. Who was this kid, anyway? Where did she come from?

Since Katherine had long since won the Junior Women's, she could no longer fence in it and was limited to the Women's Open. But she won the Women's Open, which she had won a number of times before, by her usual wide margin. A perfectly normal looking woman in her mid-thirties, she was well known by the folks at the Pacific International tournaments to be a powerful fencer. So—no surprises there.

Concurrent with Katherine's win, the little newcomer from Seattle pulled her second surprise. Sherry, figuring "In for a penny, in for a pound," had also entered the Women's Open. And she won the second place medal, losing only to Katherine Modrell!

When we got back to Seattle with Sherry's first place trophy as Pacific International Junior Women's Champion and second place medal for the Women's Open, Bruce's jaw hit the floor. He was most surprised. And pleased, in a gut-wrenching sort of way, that Sherry had done marvelously well. But—other than that, he didn't have a helluva lot to say.

I do love life's little triumphs. I must have a petty little soul, because one of my favorite activities is smirking proudly.

It took him a day or two, but Bruce apologized for his tirade and thanked me profusely for Sherry's victories (I reminded him that Sherry had quite a bit to do with it. She'd turned out to be kind of a natural). All was well again.

Sherry got Bruce to read Nadi's book, and I guess it started making sense to him. He began bending his knees a bit more in the guard position, he held his body more in profile toward his opponents, he held his sword arm a bit more extended, and he began lunging long, low, and all-out. And he retired his French foil in favor of an Italian foil.

Don Firth