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Customer Rating: - Beginners Fencing Book- Long on Attitude
I have a 9-year-old daughter who is interested in fencing. I bought this book hoping it would be a good basic instruction manual suitable for a child who is a good reader. Whatever it's merits, the book did not meet my hopes and expectations.

There is clearly a lot of good information in the book. However, in order to get to that information it is necessary to wade through a lot of prose in an excessively informal, folksy style that instantly rings false. The introduction (titled "You've Got To Be Kidding! But It Looks So Wierd") sets the tone, devoting itself to reassuring the reader that fencing is not a wimpy sport. The book proceeds to devote entirely too much ink to fencing's supposed underdog status in the world of sports, berating unclean fencing clubs, unintelligible instructors, etc.

Now my daughter had been fascinated by the idea of fencing ever since she discovered one of my old foils in the basement. It had never occurred to her that fencing was anything other than exciting and fun. The introduction, however well-intentioned by the authors, sets a negative tone that is entirely inappropriate for a young reader.

My daughter daughter was pretty much instantly turned off by this book. I had to agree with her.

If you can get it, I would highly recommend the out-of-print "Sports Illustrated Book Of Fencing", as a much more appropriate book for a young beginning fencer.

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Customer Rating: - A Very Good Book-
Fencer's Start-up is an excellent intro and informative source for the beginning fencer- In all three weapons that it goes over, it covers the parries,footwork, basic defence, attacks, and some strategy. Also, the text is very interesting and easy to understand; you wont feel like youre being dragged tediously throughout the book. I highly recommend this- However, fencers BEYOND their first 6 months would NOT find this book as helpful since by then, they would have mastered the things shown.

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Customer Rating: - Arrogance at its worst
Technically, this book is not a disaster: the basics of sport fencing are covered reasonably enough.

But the author has no respect for the tradition of fencing, nor does he come off as being more than anything than a "Sport Fencer" and semi-literate jock who has nothing but his own glorification in mind when he writes.

The most intolerable and tedious part of this tome is the "Fencing Journal." I must applaud whoever his maestro was, because he must have had the patience of a saint to put up with the author's temper tantrums, disgraceful behavior and overall infantilism.

This book is asinine. I would highly recommend Nick Evangelista's books and BY THE SWORD by Cohen for a true sentiment de fer. Avoid this piece of garbage like the plague, or if you must sbject yourself, get it at the local library.

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Customer Rating: - You All Miss The Point Of This Book...
I checked this book out at a local library in Kansas City when I was looking for a book to help learn the basic skills of fencing. When I first read "Fencer's Start-Up: A Beginner's Guide To Traditional And Sport Fencing" I thought I had discovered at least a primer for the on-guard position, parries and basic attacks. Unfortunatly the descriptions of the body mechanics involved for the moves were to shallow for me to make use of them. I started reading the second half of the book and that is when the book redeemed itself.

The author included a short journal of his learning experiences as a fencer. He did manage to be honest throughout the entire journal and that's what makes the second half so good. Not a lot of author's can be totally honest with their readers when they sit down to write even a simple treatise on fencing. The manage to write themselves into a good light as with most short autobiographies but this author didn't.

You all came to this book expecting a serious manual on the art of fencing and I think that is the wrong attitude to approach this book with. Try to think of this book as a tool to get a young person passionate about the sport by showing them how simple a game it is to play. Most of the books on fencing I have read have a stern classical view of fencing, one that keeps it's full people potential chained back by tradition. What I mean is that most of the books I have read do not make fencing look like something that can be done by just anyone. They confine the sport to the rich, the elite or those who already have friends or family fencing. This books was a small attempt to change that by showing people the game without a great deal of tradition. For that it is a book I would want in my library.

For those of you who don't agree with what I have said I say, "Tough."