SELECT parry WHERE attacker.act = LUNGE
There are an odd number of people at practice, so I get to do my drills with the Assistant Coach. I love this; sometimes the younger folk get bored and stop paying attention or want to wander off, but the Assistant Coach always takes it seriously no matter how simple the exercise. We're doing one of those simple exercises now: he steps forward and lunges, I wait until he begins the lunge to step back, parry and riposte (an attack after a successful parry). It's easy to do sloppily and hard to do well, so we are going at it, over and over, while I concentrate on different parts of it.

About ten minutes later, Coach comes by to demonstrate the second stage of the drill, which involves both parties advancing and retreating. I am trying to figure out who is signalling the attack: it's not the attacker, as I assumed, but rather the defender. I think, anyway, I'm still studying them. When Coach stops, he glances at me and says, "Do you understand?"

"I think so," I say.

"It's a trigger!" Assistant Coach exclaims, gleeful. "You see, he starts the footwork and I follow what he does, until something triggers in my head and says: "I'm ready for him to attack me," and then my body stops moving, causing him to say—"

I am already laughing; I've seen this precise body language before... in meetings. "What am I? A stored procedure in an Oracle database?"

"You see," the Coach says, pointing at his assistant, "I am thinking tactically and he is thinking... I don't know what he's thinking."

"Like a coder," I say, grinning at the Assistant Coach. "You are such a geek!"

He straightens, the tip of his practice sword digging into the floor. "I have claimed many things, but never not to be a geek!"

I laugh. "All right, all right. Bring it, IT guy."


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