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Wednesday
Sep012010

First "how to" video coming soon

I'm trying to squeeze some time in to make some instructional videos, and you can expect a series on beginner fencing soon. I have the footage for the first one and am in the process of editing it together.

Saturday
Aug212010

Site Design Suggestions Welcome

Hi,

I'm still mostly playing around with the site design and layout. There's a lack of experience on my part, so I'll gladly take suggestions on color scheme and architecture. I'm not sure about the whole orange/red thing, or which parts should have a background, border, etc. Also, combining the website's name text with the logo is proving tricky, mostly because the logo has so much empty space.

In the meantime, I'm still in the planning stages of some "how to" videos to try to capture the interest of beginners or those curious about fencing.

One thing I'm missing for a planned video project is a good HD video in a minimally-compressed format, like mini-DV. If anyone has (preferably stable) footage like this of a sabre bout, it would really help me out. You can email me to let me know: mihail at this site's domain.

Thursday
Aug192010

Off-season Update

I'm reworking the site, and wondering how best to provide the video content. YouTube is searchable enough, so it doesn't seem that keeping a database of bouts here is worth the effort and time it takes, although I can make YouTube Playlists that will contain bouts of individual tournaments, etc.

Planned is a "What is fencing?" section with some introduction videos aimed at capturing beginner interest in the sport.

On the personal side, I'm taking August entirely off from fencing, focusing only on physical development. This past year I've had my best season yet. It was mainly due to three things:

 

  1. Some breaks: as hard as you work, you're always going to be either on the winning or losing side of luck. That doesn't mean that an athlete isn't in control of his situation, but that everyone gets these breaks, and it's up to the individual to be prepared enough to take advantage of them.
  2. Comfort with ideas: there's a fine balance between being comfortable in your own ideas and being open to new ones. I found it somewhat last season and hope to continue striking it.
  3. Physical preparation: I spent last summer working out seriously, and it allowed me a great start into the season. When you're in control of your body, it allows the mind to focus on more important things. 

 

So I want to repeat that success and improve on it. I'm doing two work-outs a day, although it's hard to fit them in around a 9-5 job. In the mornings, I do 60-90 minutes of strength training (could be resistance or plyometric, etc.) including core work. In the evenings, I'm doing cardio stuff, usually a mile jog to warm up and them some interval sprint training. By the way, help or advice in this area would be welcome, since I'm trying to figure out what the intervals should be.

Towards the end of August, I'd like to add a daily or almost daily footwork session to this. It will be tough to find the time but I've gotta fit it in somehow.