against my wishes, i went to my first tournament of '08..not so sure what's been going on with me these days competitively speaking, but tournaments have been waaayy down my priority list but i went anyways...
started out ok then ended up 5-2 in an 8 person pool; ended up seeded 4th. it was a full tableau so no first round byes. first round, won 15-13 to get to top 8. this bout was tough. i was forced to use frenchy against an opponent i'd rather use the pistol against but fell victim to "murphy's law of fencing" in that all my other weapons failed.
second round was against a teammate stronger than me (also 5 inches or so taller!!); somewhat of a mythical figure that pops in to fence every now and then but still extremely strong. end up winning 15-13 again; here the reach of the frenchy helped.
third round was against a certain nemesis that usually gives me a bit of trouble; lost pool bout against him. here i made an adjustment in distance as i got a good measure of his attacks...got off to a good start and held him off to a 15-13 win..at this time i'm huffing and puffing but i'm off to the final...
here i'm against someone i 5 or 6 inches of height to as well. to cut a long story short, it was easier than i thought as i end up winning 15-5 to claim my second straight gold medal. so far the results this season: 5th, 8th, 1st, 1st. if i must have a goal it would be to gain eligibility for the CSC tournaments..we'll see. CFF doesn't wants us "scrubs" to go anywhere near their "elite" fencers so we have to get to top 40 which will take some doing.
so it was another win for the smaller epee fencer. i think i was at least tied for the shortest person there at 5'10 (or maybe not..hmm..can't remember). nothing better than beating the 6'4 and 6'5 fencers...to be honest there really isn't anything significantly different you need to do against the taller fencers other than to fence sensibly which you should be doing anyways (picking at the wrist is silly advice and impractical if you ever fence tall guys who are actually good..besides you can't pick at someone's wrist for frickin' 15 touches!! you have to fence smart). doesn't matter how tall they are when your distance/timing is right; that's the hard part.
02-04-2008 01:05 AM 
); somewhat of a mythical figure that pops in to fence every now and then but still extremely strong. end up winning 15-13 again; here the reach of the frenchy helped.