En Garde at BBC Radio 2’s Fencing Sporting Challenge

On a snowy and particularly chilly first day of December, myself, Karim Bashir and fellow athlete James Thornton met up at a dance studio in central London to film Radio 2’s next sporting challenge. It was a really fun day and presenters Chris Evans and Johnny Saunders were great to be around. They are both genuinely funny, polite and professional guys.

Chris and Johnny started the day wearing hilarious musketeer outfits. They were a sight to see and it was hard for us to keep a straight face during filming. They were naturally very witty and bounced off each other brilliantly.

Karim did a great job of explaining the basics of fencing and came across really well on camera. What a pro! He’ll probably kill me for saying that.

Now for the actual challenge - I was teamed up with Chris and had ten minutes to turn him into a champion fencer. Chris was worried that Johnny was naturally more aggressive than him but I told him that it was all in the head! Chris had a great reach and lunge and so I was encouraging him to make use of it and push his arm out to score a hit. Chris was very interested in fencing and agreed with Johnny that it was a more complex sport than he had previously thought. It is more than just a battle, it was tactical, strategic and mental – not to mention, physical!

The challenge turned out to be a great fight. Both Chris and Johnny were neck-a-neck until the final hit. Check out who won here: http://bbc.in/fEaSs6

A great day was had by all and it was a pleasure to film with Johnny and Chris. Thank-you to Leon Paul for supplying the equipment and to Radio 2 for choosing fencing as this week’s sporting challenge. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it!

The Power book trailer (sequel to The Secret)

The Secret

I discovered The Secret a couple of weeks ago. I’ve actually known of it for a while now, but kept pushing it aside, sceptical of its content and supposedly life-transforming revelations. The Secret is in fact no longer a secret, having sold millions of copies worldwide, and taking its vision onto the big screen in 2006. The driving force behind the book was a lady called Rhonda Byrne who was first exposed to The Secret when she was given a hundred-year-old book by her daughter Hayley. In it she discovered that all the greatest people in history knew of The Secret and contributed to it in some way: Plato, Shakespeare, Newton, Hugo, Beethoven, Lincoln, Emerson, Einstein.

So what is The Secret? In my mind, The Secret is the law of attraction! Its underlying message states that everything you have accomplished, that surrounds you, including the things that you are complaining about, you have attracted. Therefore if you emit and radiate positive and optimistic thinking, and your intentions are good, by the law of attraction, good things will happen to you. If you want to change anything in your life, then you have the power to do so, you simply have to change the frequency by changing your thoughts. In other words, what you think about you bring about.

To add to this, when you are feeling good, you are on the frequency of receiving. Michael Bernard Beckwith states: “This is a feeling universe. If you just intellectually believe something, but you have no corresponding feeling underneath that, you don’t necessarily have enough power to manifest what you want in your life. You have to feel it.” I completely agree with this. You cannot just think up positive ideas, you must follow them and feel them. Inspired action will attract support. Equally, expect the things you want and don’t expect the things you don’t want, simple!

The book also touches on visualisation and the powerful signals you emit from such an exercise. Dr Denis Waitley explains: “When you visualise then you materialise. Here’s an interesting thing about the mind: we took Olympic athletes and had them run their event only in their mind, and then hooked up to sophisticated biofeedback equipment. Incredibly, the same muscles fired in the same sequence when they were running it on the track. How could this be? Because the mind can’t distinguish whether you’re really doing it or whether it’s just a practice. If you’ve been there in the mind you’ll go there in the body.” Embarrassingly, I’ve been victim of this ‘muscle twitching’ scenario numerous times on the plane on the way back from competitions. I’ve found myself falling asleep while thinking about the day’s events and out of no-where I hit my poor unassuming neighbour with a beautiful parry quart reposte. It just happens without me even realising the power of my thoughts!

The book is full of inspirational teachings and even sheds light on The Secret of the World! Lisa Nichols says: “In our society, we’ve become content with fighting against things. Fighting against cancer, fighting against poverty, fighting against war, fighting against drugs, fighting against terrorism, fighting against violence. We tend to fight everything we don’t want, which actually creates more fight.” Cheryl Cole’s ‘Fight for this love’ springs to mind. But seriously, resistance seems to be a futile pursuit. What you resist, you attract, because you put all your emotional charge around it, and furthermore “what you resist persists,” Carl Jung (1875-1961). Halle Dwoskin underlines “if you’re anti-war, be pro-peace instead...If you are anti-a-particular politician, be pro-his opponent. Often elections are tipped in favour of the person that the people are really against, because he’s getting all the energy and all the focus.” Again, Le Pen reaching the second round of the 2002 French elections springs to mind here.

I think the message is that you are the only one who can create the life you deserve. If you deliberately focus on what you want, the law of attraction will respond.

At first, I was sceptical about this ‘book on life,’ but now I know The Secret, I am convinced the teachings underlined in the book can help get the best out of you. So there is my secret tip of the week! Give The Secret a go! If you’ve already read it, I’d love to know your thoughts on it.

The Lansdowne Club Exhibition Match, Great Britain v Japan

Last Friday 22nd October, the Japanese Men’s Foil fencing team (currently ranked 4th in the world) were invited to the Lansdowne Club to fence in a Challenge Match against our Senior Great Britain team. It was a wonderful occasion for us to showcase our sport and a fantastic training opportunity for both teams before the upcoming World Championships in Paris in November.

It was a full-house and I was excited to see so many familiar faces and representatives from British Fencing who came along to support our boys. There were also a lot of people outside of the fencing circle who seemed genuinely impressed by the set-up and skills that both teams were displaying. It was an exciting match that started with Japan taking an early lead and maintaining it until the gap was narrowed a few fights from the end at 28-27. GB held the score and fought hard until the last hit but Yuki Ota (Beijing Olympic silver medallist) closed-out the match with a final score of 45-41.

Irrespective of who won, both teams gave the audience a fantastic display of fencing. Indeed I brought along a few friends of mine who had only seen me fence once and so were near first-time spectators, and they loved it. They found it exciting, entertaining and professional. This is the sort of event that I wish more people could be exposed to. Fencing can be brilliantly gripping, and it deserves more media attention.

The friendly also saw the GB boys wearing brand new Leon Paul masks made especially for the Great Britain team. I thought they looked great! The Union Jack design is striking and impressive – I am looking forward to seeing what Leon Paul come up with next!

Thank-you to everyone involved for putting on such a wonderful evening.

CFC10 Women's Foil Teams - England v Singapore (final) (courtesy of Steve Johnson)

Hungarian training camp, Budapest

After a weekend’s recovery from the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, I found myself boarding another flight to Budapest for a pre-world championship training camp with the senior GB foil ladies. After enduring 22 hours on a plane from Australia, the flight to Budapest seemed very easy, especially since I was kindly met at the airport by someone from the Hungarian Fencing Federation. This marked the start of the amazing hospitality the Hungarians showed us throughout the week.

The GB team were staying in their brand new training complex in Budapest. It is a multi-sporting venue where athletes can eat, sleep and breathe fencing. We stayed in rooms equipped with the latest mod-cons including plasma TV screen, free wireless, air-con and a big balcony perfect for hanging out sweaty kit! The girls and I all agreed that the rooms were better than most hotels we stay in on the international circuit. It really was fantastic and very comfortable.

A typical training day was split between two training sessions – morning and late afternoon – meaning we had a long break to recuperate between each session. Mostly we did a short warm-up and footwork session and then made the most of our new Hungarian sparring partners with continuous sparring throughout the day. It was a pleasure for us all to fence with such good training partners. It also allowed the British girls the chance to catch up and bond together as a team after the summer off. The atmosphere was happy, relaxed and ideal for getting the most out of ourselves during training.

On the last day we were asked to meet downstairs for a ‘special meeting.’ We were excited to see what the Hungarian coach had in store for us. After years of military-based training camps in Grantham I was half-expecting a ‘special’ team run! Little did we know that we were actually being driven to a private speed boat on the Danube. It was such a great treat! We were each allowed to drive the boat – I of course hit the accelerator hard and sped off as fast as I could – such good fun! It was a beautiful day too and the perfect way to see the beautiful sights of Budapest.

I’d like to say thank-you once again to the Hungarian coach and team for such a fantastic training camp. They were the perfect hosts from start to finish and we each got a lot out of training with them. I hope we can go back there soon! Thank-you!

Team Commonwealth gold! Melbourne, 2010

Yesterday the England women’s foil team won gold at the Commonwealth Championships and it was a fantastic victory. We fenced sharply and solidly all throughout the day, beating Guernsey and Australia on the way to the final. It was a particularly hot day in Melbourne yesterday, the venue was stuffy and draining and so hydration was a priority. We were lucky enough that the English accommodation is in walking distance from the venue and so we took a much needed break back at the apartments between the semi’s and the finals.

We came back feeling re-charged and ready for what we knew was going to be a tough final. The Singapore team have a lot of experience on the Senior World Cup circuit and we knew we would have to step up and fence to the best of our abilities. It was a very close final all the way through leading up to the last bout of the match – there were never more than 2 hits between us and the Singapore team. In the last fight, with just 20 seconds to go, I got another 3 hits and managed to take England into the lead. At 10 seconds my opponent was forced to attack me and I managed to pick her off ending in a final score of 31-27. We won!

It was a fantastic final to be a part off. The girls made me so proud. They were professional from start to finish and never let up. We bounced off one another throughout the day, pushing each other to get the best out of ourselves. At the start of the day we drew up a list of short-term goals that we wanted to achieve throughout the day and within each team fight. We knew exactly what we had to do and were clear about our set goals. We all played a massive part in winning and that was what it was all about, the team.

We ended the championships on a high and it was an experience I’ll never forget.

Before I sign off, I would like to thank both Beth Speedy and Jonathan Katz for their fantastic support. I really appreciated their help at the Championships. Also, thanks to the entire England team for their massive encouragement. There is a great vibe in the England camp and we are bringing home the medals across all weapons. With just one more day of competition left, I hope England bring home gold so that we’ll all be flying home with gold medal’s around our necks.