I'm a very lucky person. Throughout my life I have been generally succesful with most of my undertakings, with a notable exception of sports. Though most would say that I am built like an athlete, I come from a family of academics who had no interest in sports. On top of that I was rather ill throughout my childhood and wasn't allowed to do much in the way of athletics until my mid-teens. I'm largely past that now, but it took me years to catch up to people my age when it comes to strength, stamina and coordination (still ways to go on that last one!).
I've fenced for much longer than I often admit - started in 1996 when I still lived in Ukraine and other than two one-year breaks, I've been involved with fencing to some extent throughout. During that time I saw a lot of newbies start, get better and then surpass me both skills- and results-wise.
One of those kids, SamH is my inspiration to write this blog. Being longtime f.net nerds and old clubmates, we often discussed other people's blogs (with Allen Evans' and Fencergirl's being our shared favorites). Although he's 4 or 5 years younger than I, Sam is a very close friend of mine and I have a tremendous amount of respect for his intelligence, determination and numerous other qualities that make him a solid dude. Being a modest guy that he is, Sam has never mentioned that he has a blog of his own, until I stumbled upon it by pure chance. Naturally, it made me want to have one as well, plus lately I've been feeling that I may actually have something to write about.
You see, after many years of relative mediocrity in spite of training at one of Canada's strongest epee clubs (Dynamo Vancouver), I felt it was time to hang 'em up for good after my only season of varsity fencing at Queen's University where I attended grad school. I lasted about 8 months, during which I refereed every tournament imaginable and coached the epee squad at Queen's whenever I visited Kingston (I now live in Toronto). I was largely content with that being the extent of my involvement with fencing for teh rest of my life, until Calgary Nationals in November...
It's no big secret that referees drink, and drink quite a bit. I too took part in many a referee gongshow even when I was still competing. Calgary '08 was no different in that regard, but for some reason, as I was dragging the lifeless body of my fellow Ukrainian referee (he now resides in the USA but is technically a Canadian) back to our room, it made me think that at 25 I was way too young to have reffing and occasional coaching as the only things connecting me with the sport I love.
You guessed it, this is yet another blog about yet another attempted comeback in the face of all kinds of advesity. Except, I have no intention to dramatize my entries, nor do I ultimately care where this "comeback" takes me, simply because the last 3-4 months have been the first instance of my fencing career where I am really having fun. Strangely enough, I feel like I'm starting to really improve.
This definitely has to do with the new coach (more on that in later entries), but even more so, I think it's the new approach. I've always been very succesful in academics, and now that I've started to learn fencing as opposed to trying "to get better" at it, I'm having a fantastic time and am starting to notice some progress. Let's hope that it continues.
04-03-2009 04:21 PM