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My Sword Is Named Patience
There is a depth of double entendre in this revelation I am sharing here.
I was sitting at my desk, trying to find meaning. I was feeling lost and disoriented.
So I picked up a sword. I started fencing over 28 years ago. Though I use a rapier or its equivalent 98% of the time, I started by choosing my live-steel katana.
Due to self-quarantine and social distancing, there has been no fencing practice for over a month. Fencing has been my joy, my favorite activity for more than a quarter-century. Not being able to join my friends and exercise my body and blade together is taking more out of me than I realized.
I practiced stances, grips, and movement with the katana. For reasons I cannot fully explain, this weapon has always made perfect sense to me. I know what it can do, how it is meant to move, and how I should move with it.
When I have had an opportunity to fight with a katana or its equivalent its always felt right to me (the type of fencing I do allows for a katana variant — which is really cool).
After a time, and warming up unused muscles and unworked movements, I switched to my rapier. Really, in its general design and makeup, it’s more like a smallsword than a rapier. But the hilt is based on a historic rapier…
