As an undergraduate, circa Spring 1962, I was required by Hunter College
to elect a sports class. The usual like basketball were out of the
question. Hence the first of many life miscalculations--I elected
fencing, figuring it was a nice faggy sport for a fat faggy kid without
an cell of athletic talent.
Wrong. Within a week I could barely walk. Every damned muscle in my
legs and shoulders ached fit to scream. We also had a Hungarian
teacher, Frank Solymosi, a 1956 Olympian who defected after the crushed
uprising--though the time sequence is not clear. He was a total
madman. He would swing from the gym ropes like Errol Flynn, foil(?)
between his teeth for Godsake, and yell "I kill you!" Everyone had to
duel him as a lesson in humility. Everyone lost.
I won only one match. I threw away the rules I was practicing about
stance, bends, blah-blah. I was pissed off at losing. I went right at
the other kid with flying foil, and scored points on him because if he
could not get out of the box, I'd never been in it to start with.
Winning by playing dirty can be fun, and I loved it.
Ken
--
Ken Wolman http://bestiaire.typepad.com http://www.petsit.com/content317832.html
-------------------
"I have been watching you; you were there, unconcerned perhaps, but with a strange distraught air of someone forever expecting a great misfortune, in sunlight, in a beautiful garden."--Maurice Maeterlinck, Pelleas et Melisande
|