Being the Arrow

“Fléche” – arrow. Not exactly a word in English, but a word in fencing, which like all martial arts has a dialect of its own. In this case many of the terms come from French.

But this is not a case of bringing a sword to a bowfight. No, here the fencer is the arrow. It’s a technique used most often in épée, the weapon I trained most in. Here the rules are simple. Whoever hits first gets the point. The whole body is the target. “To fleche” is one of the best ways to strike first on your opponent’s most vulnerable point.

It begins at the sword tip. It leads the way, stretching towards the spot where it will land. The blade, the guard, the hand follow in line, smooth and direct. The arm straightens from the half-bent en garde position until it too forms the arrow shaft. The shoulder dips into line, then the back, and then the feet leave the ground. You never get horizontal of course, but the arrow’s point hits before your feet return to the piste.

Many things must go right if this attack is to succeed.

Distance: Too close and your opponent can hit you first. Too far away and you can be parried, exposed to an unfailing riposte. Exactly right (and it depends on how tall, how fast they are) and you will hit.

Timing: Not when your opponent is retreating. Not when they are executing their own fleche, or some other attack you need to deal with. The best time is when you see a pause, a faint relaxation, a momentary distraction, an instant of indecision. Then, their feet, their hand will be too slow, and you will hit.

Speed: Not every arrow must fly fast. Some do, let fly before you’re even conscious of the moment. Others bend their way through the air, drawing the response too soon, leaving your opponent defenceless. And you will hit.

Target: The body is of course the easiest, the biggest. The head too, though it’s not always considered the done thing to dent your opponent’s mask. But they’re not the closest to you. The arrow that flies furthest may not reach. Safer but harder are the shoulder, upper arm, forearm, hand. You could even go for the toe, though I only managed that once or twice. Pick the right target and you will hit.

I’ve tried lots of sports, somehow even more since March 2020, but there’s almost nothing quite as satisfying as a well-executed fleche. In my later years on the piste it become and instinct. Something in my eyes, hand, feet connected with those elements I listed earlier. I’d find myself landing just past almost any opponent, my light bright on the scoring box. Does it hurt? It can – someone’s whole bodyweight concentrated behind a steel tip a quarter of an inch across. It can draw blood even through your protective clothing, and bruises of all sorts of interesting colours often result. But a perfect fleche – right distance, well timed, good speed and on target – feels just like a tap, a touch from your opponent, who is also a friend in this most individual of sports: “touché”.

South Oxford, Easter Sunday – 6 images

Songthrush

Blackbird

Common pipistrelle

Geese settling

Hawthorn blossom

Robin

Trees motionless

Water slightly folded

Soft air

Edge

The first thing to do is to overcome your instinct.

To top-belay your climbing partner you have to sit exactly on the edge of the rock wall, legs hanging overt, looking directly down.

You would probably prefer to sit some way back, with a metre or two of the limestone outcrop in front of you, glittering in the sun, fissured and smeared with lichen. Some might prefer to be back among the heather on the moor, the edge no more than an idea on the far side of the rock line.

Most climbs on the Roaches are no more than 12-15 metres but you have to look right down between your toes and watch your partner’s progress carefully. The wind, sheeting across the open land and right into the back of your neck, is still where she is, down among the tumbled rocks and coiled rope at the face’s feet.

You hold her life in your hands, it takes the form of a rope a centimetre and a half wide, whose surface, a resilient textile, is patterned and shiny as a reptile’s skin. This passes through a belay device. As she climbs you take up the slack through the zig-zag loops of the cold steel belay. As you pull, your back hand is up. When the rope is tight, that hand drops, holding the “dead rope” against the metal. This means that if she slips the rope won’t. You’ll hold her until she can get back on the wall.

You are right on the edge, the Roaches abruptly ending precisely where you sit. You are tied to the stone itself. A harness round your hips is bound by hitches and loops to a three-part anchor among the rocks behind you. Each component of the anchor takes part of the load. You are trusting yourself to the rope, the knot, the snugness of the gear in among the rocks.

You’re right at the anchor’s furthest stretch. As you look down, or glance up at the great rolling view towards the sun-white reservoir and beyond, the pull of the harness back towards the land behind is the constant reassurance your instinct craves.

Once, I abseiled off a hospital for charity. The man at the top said, lean back, lean back, yes out over the open space, lean back, lean back, further, further, lean back I said. He got quite testy because it seemed like madness to fling myself into the air like that.

Eventually I did lean back, and terror vanished. The abseil seemed too short in the end. I wanted to go back up and do it again.

Your instinct doesn’t stop nagging at you as you look down at the patterns of shadow, at your partner making her way towards you, calling you now and again to “take” the slack as it arises. Suddenly she’s past your feet, hauling herself onto the top, breathless, bight with satisfaction. She steps away from the very edge, sits with her back against the wind and smiles at you. “Safe”, she says, and now it’s your turn to move back from the edge.