Word: nadi
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Retreat from Beauty. When Nadi came to the U.S. in 1935, society ladies mobbed him. Horrified at the flaccid clumsiness of some of his overstuffed clients at Elizabeth Arden's beauty salon, where he was Director of Fencing, Aldo soon quit to devote himself to serious fencers and children, his favorite pupils...
...Rosemary Wallace) whom he taught to fence, he presides over his own Salle d'Armes in Manhattan's Savoy-Plaza, where his pupils include several U.S. fencing champions and a handful of celebrities: Tenor Richard Crooks, Writer Paul Gallico, Actress Lillian Gish. As a finished world champion, Nadi finds it unnecessary to train, likes to spend his evenings in expensive nightclubs...
...fencers, chiefly concentrated in three fencing capitals (New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco) and on college campuses. Just now they are handicapped by a shortage of weapons. But the major obstacle to fencing's popularity in the U.S. is a lack of teachers. This, in Aldo Nadi's opinion, is a great pity, for he believes there is no human ill that fencing can not cure...
...Ills. . . . Fencing, says Nadi, should be "a cardinal part" of everybody's education. He considers boxing, by contrast, a vulgar, stupid sport. He prescribes fencing for developing character, nervous stamina and intelligence, for reducing, for learning to walk properly, for "strengthening and toning the breast muscles" (quips Nadi: "Show me the girl not interested in these details...
...teacher, Nadi insists on strict observance of the punctilio of fencing, even to a show of courtesy toward the judges-for whom Nadi usually has only the most perfunctory respect. In saluting an opponent, a Nadi fencer must hold his mask in his left hand with four fingers on top, look his adversary straight in the eye, bring the blade of his weapon up before his right eye, then sweep it down and to the right. The blade, says Nadi, must whistle through the air, must under no circumstances commit the "frightful discord" of striking the floor...