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anotheranonThis past weekend was the two day Big Regional Event.
I learned a lot, primarily that a lot of my best preparation takes place off the strip: getting enough sleep, enough food, and enough water. In most of my past competitions I was lacking in at least one of these, but I think I'm starting to get the balance right.
Also, interestingly, this was the first competition in which I was mostly calm - I did all my "ZOMG I'm in over my head!!!" freaking out earlier in the week :P Part of that was fueling but part of it was also getting there early enough to get used to the constant noise and motion generated by a room full of fencers.
Saturday was the women's open. I started out near the bottom - 30th out of 38 - and finished at 36 :P It's not that I couldn't get anything together, and though it's tempting to blame the fact that most of my opponents were tiny fast things young enough to be my daughters (!) the real reasons are that I was too predictable (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vree and skill_grl showed up to spectate and offered some valuable observations - thanks y'all!) and too tentative. I lost all my bouts and in half I only got one point in before defeat :(
Because of the low numbers everyone (instead of the top 80%) went into direct elimination and I was paired up against M., one of my own club mates! It was fairly close and towards the end there were only 50 seconds left. She's not terribly aggressive so I tried to time us out with footwork, but by that time I was tired and needed water and was SO sure I saw an opening that I went for it - and ran into her blade :P But damn, I made her work!
So, Sunday rolls around and I'm seeded dead last in the mixed open - 110 out of 110. Which I expected, and was cool - nowhere to go but up. Incredibly, I did, and more than I expected:
I'm not sure why there are separate events for women - I've heard vague murmurings that men are more aggressive/tend to be higher ranked but in my admittedly limited experience if these are so they don't make a marked difference to me. I lost my first two bouts 5-0 and that was a bit demoralizing, but I defeated the next 2 3-5 because I could see what they were doing and take advantage of it! In the other instances I could see what was going on, but couldn't effectively counter it - I don't know what to do with absence of blade, but that's what lessons and practice are for.
I made it to DE again - with the removal of the bottom 20% of people - and went up against a B rated guy who I managed to hit twice before he routed me. All told, I'm pretty damn pleased with myself :)
Aftermath: I'm deeply tired and the "comedown" is something like my old post-rave coming-back-to-reality/normal pulse rate etc. Interestingly I'm not too sore (yet?) and only got one hit that might turn into a bruise. My feet got a little tingly towards the end, so I'm resting tomorrow night.
Not bad. Not bad.
Aftermath:
I learned a lot, primarily that a lot of my best preparation takes place off the strip: getting enough sleep, enough food, and enough water. In most of my past competitions I was lacking in at least one of these, but I think I'm starting to get the balance right.
Also, interestingly, this was the first competition in which I was mostly calm - I did all my "ZOMG I'm in over my head!!!" freaking out earlier in the week :P Part of that was fueling but part of it was also getting there early enough to get used to the constant noise and motion generated by a room full of fencers.
Saturday was the women's open. I started out near the bottom - 30th out of 38 - and finished at 36 :P It's not that I couldn't get anything together, and though it's tempting to blame the fact that most of my opponents were tiny fast things young enough to be my daughters (!) the real reasons are that I was too predictable (
vree and skill_grl showed up to spectate and offered some valuable observations - thanks y'all!) and too tentative. I lost all my bouts and in half I only got one point in before defeat :(Because of the low numbers everyone (instead of the top 80%) went into direct elimination and I was paired up against M., one of my own club mates! It was fairly close and towards the end there were only 50 seconds left. She's not terribly aggressive so I tried to time us out with footwork, but by that time I was tired and needed water and was SO sure I saw an opening that I went for it - and ran into her blade :P But damn, I made her work!
So, Sunday rolls around and I'm seeded dead last in the mixed open - 110 out of 110. Which I expected, and was cool - nowhere to go but up. Incredibly, I did, and more than I expected:
I'm not sure why there are separate events for women - I've heard vague murmurings that men are more aggressive/tend to be higher ranked but in my admittedly limited experience if these are so they don't make a marked difference to me. I lost my first two bouts 5-0 and that was a bit demoralizing, but I defeated the next 2 3-5 because I could see what they were doing and take advantage of it! In the other instances I could see what was going on, but couldn't effectively counter it - I don't know what to do with absence of blade, but that's what lessons and practice are for.
I made it to DE again - with the removal of the bottom 20% of people - and went up against a B rated guy who I managed to hit twice before he routed me. All told, I'm pretty damn pleased with myself :)
Aftermath: I'm deeply tired and the "comedown" is something like my old post-rave coming-back-to-reality/normal pulse rate etc. Interestingly I'm not too sore (yet?) and only got one hit that might turn into a bruise. My feet got a little tingly towards the end, so I'm resting tomorrow night.
Not bad. Not bad.
Aftermath:
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-31 12:50 am (UTC)Make sure you tell me about future competitions. I want to come watch you more.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-03 10:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-31 01:06 am (UTC)totally random!
Date: 2008-04-03 05:20 pm (UTC)I've recently started posting in my livejournal again, and as I mostly write about fencing in it (boring my "normal" friends to tears) I wanted to find some other fencers on LJ. Add me back? :-)
--Marie
Re: totally random!
Date: 2008-04-03 09:51 pm (UTC)Re: totally random!
Date: 2008-04-04 01:41 pm (UTC)I'm glad you had a good time at CB. It sounds like you took a lot away with you to work on, which is the way to go. I definitely did too.
I had a pretty good finish by my standards, but it was still pretty frustrating. Lots to learn from it. :-7 I'm fired up for my next event (just a local C tournament up in York PA) because now I require revenge! Against the world! :-)
Re: totally random!
Date: 2008-04-06 01:26 am (UTC)other fencing blogs
Date: 2008-04-07 12:37 am (UTC)