Willis, 29, moved to Heidenhiem seven months ago and has already been rewarded for his sacrifice with a silver medal at the Frankfurt Bembel tournament.

"The move to Germany is really paying off," he said.

"With purpose-built facilities, including on-site physio and gym, as well as a greater number of high quality sparring partners, I'm pretty well embedded in the German system.

"The day starts with strength and conditioning training in the gym, followed by an individual lesson and then sparring in the evening.

"On top of this I have attended every German national squad session this year."

With the World Championships starting on November 6 in Paris, the Frankfurt tournament is used by the German team as a warm-up event and featured 15 of the top 16 Germans as well as fencers from four other nations, including Willis.

Having won all six first round fights Willis was well seeded for the direct elimination rounds, although he still had seven fights in order to get to the gold medal match.

Willis was well prepared and fought his way through to the final where he met 2009 European Champion Sven Schimd.

After a close contest Willis lost out 15-10 and took the silver medal.

Having moved to Germany on a tight budget, Willis originally took up cheap digs at nursing quarters at a local hospital.

However this did not work out as well as planned due to the noise at night.

"I now live with a training partner, Max Keck, about 300 metres from the club," said Willis.

"While I am using some of my own savings to fund things over here the move wouldn't have been possible without my Lottery grant."