This turns out to be the special summer of my revived fencing life; Vet season was, on the whole, good; renewed my B, but more importantly, fenced with a newfound sense of urgency, but composed action, and re-discovered speed in my strip execution. So results have been consistent, right up to the round of 16 where I tend to drop out, facing an implacable opponent. So that's where I am at, which feels good now at 46. I keep fencing not just because I can but because as the years pass, I'm better on the strip than I ever was much younger. So thesis that fencing is an avenue of personal growth, testing my potential, challenging my limits, is valid. In other ways, this is a watershed year too: FC has cleaved with Kornel splitting off to join new club, and Yuri leaving as well. So NY epee is fragmented, and the club that has been my home for so many very special years will soon be behind me, at least for the forseeable future. The new club seems to suit my girls better than me, but we'll be ok. At the FC, I've had not just developed great clubmates, and friends, but have enduring memories, as a front row spectator at what may well prove to be the high water mark in US fencing. In any week, espeically leading up to the 2004 Athens OG's, you could see Lyndsey, Maya, Setphanie, Kamara, Keith, Ivan, Tim, Jed, Dan and Jon, and every other elite US fencers come and go through the club. You could see Yuri, Simon, Kornel, Buckey and the other coaches. I feel very lucky and knew it then that this was a special spot, a place like no other in the US to witness the progress, and development of our most talented fencer-athletes, how they train, the passion and dedication, and the coaching staff leading. I'll never forget my afternoons, stolen from work, taking a lesson, mixing with the foil team guys, seeing Peter Westbrook, other former Olympic guys, and one day running into the whole men's Italian national saber team training before a World Cup in New York. To have been worked into this community, fence, compete from the FC as my homebase, hear in the lockerroom where the guys were going next on the WC circuit, and how they did upon return - well, this was an inside view and dream discovered.

So, on summer break from training, I decided to go in, and ran into the usual Vet age guys knocking around. So I fenced 6 straight bouts, 4x15, and felt great, energetic, fast, strong on the strip and thoughtful in my preparations and attacks. Just to sweat myself into utter exhaustion after the bouting felt great, very fulfilled. I'll miss the FC. It saddens me to leave, and I just wonder in the longer stride of my adult fencing career, how this period of my life will grow in my memory, and the Club, a temple to my love of the sport, may recede as I try and cling to its shape, and feel, and the feelings it evoked when there.