So, ever since I moved to Arizona fencing has been a different beast for me. I'm not getting coaching (yet), I'm only going to fencing twice a week at most, and there aren't that many foilists to practice with. I went to one tournament in San Bernadino, and that was a lot of fun (I won and renewed my C), but so far the tournaments in AZ have been pretty small (15 or less) and it hasn't seemed worth the money. I'm looking forward to fencing more when ASU starts up again; I am going to try to fence with their club as well. That would put me at 4 days a week which will be wonderful.

I'm trying to figure out where to take my fencing from here. I'm still coasting on lessons I took in VA. I try to work on preparations from then and I'm also working on footwork patterns from Michael Marx's clinic that have served me really well. Once I have those fairly incorporated into my game I am going to try and get coaching again. Hopefully, I will have at least two coaches to choose from in the area. We'll see how that goes.

For competitions, I'm hoping that after the wedding, I can divert a little money that was being put into wedding savings into going to NACs. That way I know I'll have some good competitions to look forward to. I may even try to look up some of the bigger regional tournaments (California, Texas, etc.) and see if I can make trips for those. I haven't been able to take time off of work because it is all being saved for the honeymoon . After that maybe I'll be able to throw in a 3-day weekend for fencing once in a while.

Interestingly, what I miss most about my fencing in VA is doing drills and participating in group instruction. I was teaching an advanced foil class when I left and I really enjoyed both teaching and doing the drills in those classes. I would also sometimes give a lesson or trade off drills with other fencers and that is somethings that hasn't happened here. It allowed me to work on actions in an arena other than a lesson or bouting. Right now I pretty much work on actions in a void (by myself with no opponent responses) or in a bout. That middle ground is where a lot of my best learning happened and I need to find a way to make that happen here.

Well, I'm off to fencing in a little bit, hopefully there will be a foilist to fence with.