Wheelchair fencing.

With the paralympics in town, I feel that it is time to admit to something that could be considered shameful in any other context.

I like watching people in wheelchairs beating each other up.

If you want to put a politically correct spin on it, it's "empowering". Contact sports are hard enough work when everything is working correctly, so seeing that level of athleticism when your body is being... disobedient... is brilliant.

The wheelchair fencing starts on Tuesday and I'm pretty sure that we can learn a lot about fighting from this event. The basic idea is that there are two chairs bolted together and just within distance. Competitors are split into 2 categories, and if I remember correctly those categories can be simplified to "good trunk control" and "Fencing arm/trunk impaired."- Those in the higher mobility class have enough movement to enable inch-perfect voids and something akin to a sitting fleche that can bring the wheelchair up with them.

So, how can this apply to fighters with working legs? Fighting from a fixed distance forces you to use time of the hand or hand/body- which makes for a "faster" fight that is a lot harder to defend from. Relying on body movement rather than footwork would enable tighter voids while keeping you in a  good place to attack.

As people may have guessed by now, I'm not one to indulge in patronising "oooh, don't they do well" kind of rhetoric.  Wheelchair fencing is bloody impressive, looks like a hell of a lot of fun and if I can find a safe, cheap way of simulating the restrictions and conditions necessary, I will use it as a training technique.