two fatal thoughts
May. 31st, 2009 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anotheranon1) I've fenced most of these people, so I know what's going to happen today.
2) We're all unrated, so this will be a piece of cake.
Er, no, and no.
My last few tournaments have been big and scary, so I thought that fencing the smallish unrated event at my regular club would be easy peasy by comparison.
Or, rather, my arrogant lizard brain thought so. My more sober frontal lobes have been trying to talk me out of it all week because I do know better - unrated does not necessarily mean untalented. Unrated people may not have as many tricks up their sleeves as more experienced fencers, but what they do, they do WELL, and it isn't always something I have a ready counter for. Also there are extreme cases: the gentleman who won the whole thing today (thus skipping his E to go straight to his D) was a re-entry person who had long ago experience in his home country. So.
In addition, even people I've fenced before (and often!) do different stuff when the timer is counting down. Something about keeping track makes them change their game, not even necessarily for the better, but it makes them more unpredictable. No one is a known quantity so walking onto the strip with that assumption is stupid.
Intellectually I know this shit but for one reason or another still had a bit too much swagger this morning. My first two bouts cured me of that, at least a little. Once I got knocked off my high horse, I won the majority of my pool bouts (7 person pools = argghhh), a first! Another first: my indicators going in were a real, live, positive number(!) So yay for me :)
The DE was hard, against someone I defeated in pools who likes to play the same defensive game that I do. The pool bout was long on prep, and short on action - I won 3-2 after going into overtime and was well worn out (more on this in a minute), and had 15 touches of the same to look forward to. I did get unexpected help from my coach, who does not often strip-side coach but did today. He encouraged me to take a more aggressive stance, and while I did lose the bout I gained 3 touches in quick succession and for the first time ever had the experience of making aggression WORK for me!
I stayed for the rest and got to see a couple of club mates get their Es :) They worked hard and looked absolutely ragged by the time they were done.
I can empathize but am still irritated at myself for being such a wimp. It's not that I can't take pain or exhaustion - I can, and it's not THAT bad once the adrenalin (and ibuprofen) get pumping - but my brain doesn't work anymore (I'm hurting as I type this and am really reaching for words here!). I'm like a happily whistling kettle....to a point. Then all the thoughts boil over and I can't quite line them up again :/ Water and rest help some but not enough - I don't expect to feel fresh as a daisy but I'd like to not feel like mental roadkill either :(
Allergies for the past few days didn't help, and my hamstrings have been screaming for... oh, at least a couple of practices now. I suppose I should be happy to have kept it together as long as I did.
Things to work on next: point control. Feints. Endurance. And getting comfortable with going for it.
2) We're all unrated, so this will be a piece of cake.
Er, no, and no.
My last few tournaments have been big and scary, so I thought that fencing the smallish unrated event at my regular club would be easy peasy by comparison.
Or, rather, my arrogant lizard brain thought so. My more sober frontal lobes have been trying to talk me out of it all week because I do know better - unrated does not necessarily mean untalented. Unrated people may not have as many tricks up their sleeves as more experienced fencers, but what they do, they do WELL, and it isn't always something I have a ready counter for. Also there are extreme cases: the gentleman who won the whole thing today (thus skipping his E to go straight to his D) was a re-entry person who had long ago experience in his home country. So.
In addition, even people I've fenced before (and often!) do different stuff when the timer is counting down. Something about keeping track makes them change their game, not even necessarily for the better, but it makes them more unpredictable. No one is a known quantity so walking onto the strip with that assumption is stupid.
Intellectually I know this shit but for one reason or another still had a bit too much swagger this morning. My first two bouts cured me of that, at least a little. Once I got knocked off my high horse, I won the majority of my pool bouts (7 person pools = argghhh), a first! Another first: my indicators going in were a real, live, positive number(!) So yay for me :)
The DE was hard, against someone I defeated in pools who likes to play the same defensive game that I do. The pool bout was long on prep, and short on action - I won 3-2 after going into overtime and was well worn out (more on this in a minute), and had 15 touches of the same to look forward to. I did get unexpected help from my coach, who does not often strip-side coach but did today. He encouraged me to take a more aggressive stance, and while I did lose the bout I gained 3 touches in quick succession and for the first time ever had the experience of making aggression WORK for me!
I stayed for the rest and got to see a couple of club mates get their Es :) They worked hard and looked absolutely ragged by the time they were done.
I can empathize but am still irritated at myself for being such a wimp. It's not that I can't take pain or exhaustion - I can, and it's not THAT bad once the adrenalin (and ibuprofen) get pumping - but my brain doesn't work anymore (I'm hurting as I type this and am really reaching for words here!). I'm like a happily whistling kettle....to a point. Then all the thoughts boil over and I can't quite line them up again :/ Water and rest help some but not enough - I don't expect to feel fresh as a daisy but I'd like to not feel like mental roadkill either :(
Allergies for the past few days didn't help, and my hamstrings have been screaming for... oh, at least a couple of practices now. I suppose I should be happy to have kept it together as long as I did.
Things to work on next: point control. Feints. Endurance. And getting comfortable with going for it.
