..and i’m happy to report that i didn’t cry at all during the team fencing competition yesterday in st. louis. i decided on saturday night that that was my goal – no crying.
here is me at the start of my very first bout. i felt pretty good before it started; i’d slept soundly the night before (because of being exhausted in my quest to find white knickers), and i guess because i didn’t decide to fence until the day before the event, my mind didn’t have enough time to start its usual crazy machinations which i’m sure would have resulted in plenty of stress and freaking out.
but maybe not.
but like i said, i felt ok. notice that i’m wearing my black sweats, instead of the knickers that everybody else had on except for one woman. this was absolutely no big deal, except i was very very warm.
i was wearing a t-shirt, and over that this plastic breast protector that kevin ordered for me. i told him it looks like a plastic version of some kind of antique breast shield that women sword fighters would have worn. it’s kind of big and over that i wear a plastern, which is a short jacket-like thing with only one arm. and over that is the full jacket. all these layers, plus the big fencing mask, not to mention the black sweats, made me very hot.
here’s joann and flynn early on, looking very serious about it all.
joann, being very petite, looks just fine in her fencing uniform. not to mention that she’s a really good fencer. but she’s very very hard on herself, even more so than me. she’s really good, but she doesn’t think she is. she gets very frustrated with herself.
here is kevin, going in for the kill.
and here’s me, at the point later in the day when i was very frustrated and thought that i might, indeed, start to cry. i had fenced for two bouts, and this was the third one, and the team we were against was very good. and this young woman was just SLAUGHTERING me, every time, she’d come in really fast and WHAM, she’d get me and i couldn’t figure out how to do anything to stop her. i was getting more and more upset, and along comes kevin, taking lots of photos and i wanted to yell FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T TAKE MY PICTURE I JUST WANT TO KILL MYSELF.
but that kind of behavior isn’t allowed. also, my teammate jay had been coaching me from the sidelines but at this point he stopped calling out anything so i figured I SUCK SO BAD THAT HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY.
not a good point in the tournament for me, personally.
also, earlier in the day, i was fencing against one of the many college students and there were a lot of them there from washington university, and they all came over and started CLAPPING and CHEERING whenever the person i was fencing against got a point. and at that point i wanted to yell THIS IS ONLY MY FIRST TOURNAMENT, plus lots of swearing at them.
but i didn’t do that, either.
during the very last round of the day i was determined to at least score a few points, and i did, and that made me happy, plus MY teammates were watching and being very encouraging.
here’s a photo of all of us from springfield.
whew. my team stopped fencing at about four, and kevin’s team wasn’t done till 5:30. we’d started at about 12:30, and it was a long day. i didn’t feel so tired when we left, and we stopped for dinner in st. louis and jay asked me if i’d be in another competition and i said i didn’t know and he was surprised; he thought i’d say HELL YES! but jay doesn’t know about my entire-life complete ineptitude at all things sporting, he doesn’t know that i’ve avoided competitive sports LIKE THE PLAGUE ever since i was no longer forced to participate in them in school.
today i do think i’d like to fence in a competition again. Probably. i’m pretty sure there were few or no other fencers at this tournament who were as novice as me, and i didn’t do totally horribly. i never won a single bout, but i did manage to get points at least part of the time. and i didn’t cry.
the thing is, during fencing class and when we’re fencing in our club meetings, we’re always fencing against the same people. being in a tournament makes you have to think about how to take on somebody you’ve never fenced against before, but if you’d just fence against the same people all the time, i don’t see how you’d be able to get that much better. i mean, i still have lots and LOTS of improving to do, but i think maybe that being in another tournament would help me to be a better fencer.
i do have to say i’m pretty exhausted today. but feeling pretty good for a monday.
a WARM monday, and i think we’re officially done with cold weather snow freezing rain sleet pile and piles of snow miserable cold winter.
ok then,
grace.