bright young things
Jan. 18th, 2010 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anotheranonYesterday I fenced a women's unrated tournament. I finished 4th of 9 (!), but I had to beat up a bunch of little girls to get there.
I was easily the oldest person entered, which isn't all that surprising - unrated is for beginners, and I began fencing/competing late. My oldest opponents were in college and a couple of the youngest were around junior high age. This gets frustrating because teenagers are in perpetual "learn mode" and improving faster than I. That and the simple fact of young reflexes means I will never, ever be as fast as they are :P
However, I did have a couple of advantages: I'd still been fencing longer than many of them and I am possessed of sheer bloody-mindedness :P I managed to turn around a defeat in pools to a victory in DE (a second DE! More on that in a second) and was fairly good at seeing through my opponents' games.
Lest this read as "durnkidsgetoutamyyard", I want to emphasize that my opponents were very, very good. It was a hard competition: usually I pools are 5-6 5 touch bouts followed by a 15 touch DE in which I usually strike out in the first round. Given the unusual number of participants I fenced 8 5 touch bouts and 3 direct eliminations - passed my first, lost my second, but still had to fence the semi-finals to find out who got third. All of my DEs were very close: 15-14, 15-12 and the like.
One of my opponents called me "amazing" after our 15-14 (my loss) bout. I was flattered and flustered, 'cos I KNOW I'm not all that.
This was a real test of my endurance (both mental and physical) and I was literally shaking and dizzy by the time I finished. I'm not aching horribly today but I have blisters where usually I have none and my back is about to register a complaint :P
It was a good day :)
I was easily the oldest person entered, which isn't all that surprising - unrated is for beginners, and I began fencing/competing late. My oldest opponents were in college and a couple of the youngest were around junior high age. This gets frustrating because teenagers are in perpetual "learn mode" and improving faster than I. That and the simple fact of young reflexes means I will never, ever be as fast as they are :P
However, I did have a couple of advantages: I'd still been fencing longer than many of them and I am possessed of sheer bloody-mindedness :P I managed to turn around a defeat in pools to a victory in DE (a second DE! More on that in a second) and was fairly good at seeing through my opponents' games.
Lest this read as "durnkidsgetoutamyyard", I want to emphasize that my opponents were very, very good. It was a hard competition: usually I pools are 5-6 5 touch bouts followed by a 15 touch DE in which I usually strike out in the first round. Given the unusual number of participants I fenced 8 5 touch bouts and 3 direct eliminations - passed my first, lost my second, but still had to fence the semi-finals to find out who got third. All of my DEs were very close: 15-14, 15-12 and the like.
One of my opponents called me "amazing" after our 15-14 (my loss) bout. I was flattered and flustered, 'cos I KNOW I'm not all that.
This was a real test of my endurance (both mental and physical) and I was literally shaking and dizzy by the time I finished. I'm not aching horribly today but I have blisters where usually I have none and my back is about to register a complaint :P
It was a good day :)
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Date: 2010-01-22 03:13 am (UTC)