The Best Fencer Ever – The Climb #170

Monday 10^th July 2017

I finally started to feel a bit like my old self today. I still don’t believe I achieved a whole lot .
Work was busy. I’ve been working on a report, which means a lot of Excel work. But on top of this, my source data isn’t being created properly so I’ve had to source data from elsewhere and piece it together. As a result, this has been a bit of a mind-numbing experience.
Kept myself busy before I went and did a bit of swordfighting training.
Yesterday, I was terrible but today I fought really, really well. We were training tournament fighting and all had to face each other. What impressed me was that I was fencing people who are consistently getting medals in competitions currently and getting hits on them. I didn’t beat everyone and I didn’t do get hits consistently but I definitely couldn’t excuse my good fighting to someone else fighting badly or a lucky bout.
Heck, Jay and I had a fight which was all blades clashing and defending and Matt, who was watching, said it looked awesome fencing. It was a lot of fun as well.
In some ways I think this just sets me up for disappointment. With Astolat now less than 2 weeks away, it’s possible I have a new found belief in my abilities which is going to get crushed in tournament when I go out during the pools.
I suppose there’s nothing I can do about that. I keep reminding myself that I said I would get frustrated around this time of year.
But I discovered something interesting tonight, although it might be too late to incorporate it into my Astolat tactics. One of the things I like to do is mix up the bouts. So in bout 1 I might go very defensive. Then in bout 2 I might step it up and go more offensive.
But what I did tonight was to switch it up mid-way during the fight. I watched as two of the best fencers in the school positively flinched as I went from defensive to aggressive in a split second. This is very difficult to do because it needs a lot of explosive power to avoid just ramping it up.
Now it was high risk. I was getting hit as much as I was hitting the other person but I keep forgetting I’ve trained this explosive power and it seems when I’m able to use it with control, it’s really, really effective. This is especially so when I’m fencing very defensively and then explode into it.
I’m thinking that a lot of this is to do with confidence. One of the things my agent has said to me is to be more confident in my writing. And given that I told a friend yesterday that there’s a 1:1 correlation between fencing and writing, I suspect that I am also not confident in my fighting.
I can see it in the way I come into measure and then hesitate, worried that my opponent might do something. It’s one thing to go in being prepared, it’s another to give away the fight.
When it works, it works brilliantly, but I’m just not consistent. But hey… less than 2 weeks is perfectly long enough to completely change the way I fight and master it? Right?
But unlike yesterday, I finish today feeling very satisfied with my fencing. If I fence that well at Astolat, I could come away with a medal. I suspect I won’t fence that way, and so I won’t come away with anything other than frustration but this is just another area of my confidence I need to work on.
If you want to follow more of my journey, then be sure to check me on my social channels. Likewise, if you’d like me to expand on any point mentioned above, please say so in the comments.