My name is Chris. I am the co-founder of the GMU fencing team, for which I currently serve as the coach, and the captain, The crazy part is that im only 20, and I am not a very accomplished fencer. I referee (alot) because I need the money and I enjoy it. Im becoming a better referee than I am fencer, by far.
So I am going to try to use this blog to document and follow my development as a referee, from local schmo, into hopefully, an international level ref...
Its funny, I've been looking forward to summer nationals for a long time, because its been like 9 months since reffing a NAC. But now that its almost here, my drive has gone way down. The combination of sucking the last time I reffed* and there being some things here in NJ that I really don't want to leave at the moment.
Gah! Of course that's the way life goes. Ah well, it should be interesting 1 way or another...
*Day 2 at pomme, I started off fine, then when I got moved to womens, I had a pool of very awkward fencing, and it just broke my eyes/brain. I don't even know exactly what happened, I just sucked for the rest of the day of foil. I pulled myself after the 32 of the womens foil, because I was just reaaallly sucking.
It truly bothers me when I suck at reffing. There are a few bouts. I generally consider myself a pretty good foil ref. Not great, but I'd like to think that in general, fencers are happy to have me referee them compared to other refs. I work very hard at reffing, and I know I'm getting better. So events like that WF at pomme really bother me. Because I know there are some fencers who think I'm a terrible ref. And the thing is, based on their encounters that day, they wouldn't be wrong!
While I know its just part of the learning experience, and its not the biggest deal, and it didn't really hurt anyone in the end, it still very seriously bothers me.
Its funny, everyone from my club had a bad day at pomme. All of our fencers except 1 didn't do very well, and the 1 that did do well, lost a winnable bout. I was the only one there from our club not fencing, and I sucked at reffing.
06-28-2009 03:52 PM