This entry documents my performance and discoveries at last weekend’s tournament. We had 27 epeeists and I was in a pool of 7. My goal for the day was to have a plan of attack against every opponent and on every point. Things started off well. I won my first 4 bouts – one against a fencer that usually beats me, but he got over-confident and I took advantage. The fifth bout was the only one of the day that I lost that I should not have. It was against an old friend who I have not seen or fenced against in nearly 9 months. I psyched myself out. I had no plan against him. My fault.
I finished the pool with 4 wins and two losses, seeding me 10th out of 27. Acceptable.
My first DE was against a leftie. I had faced her in the pool bouts and she was a challenge there. In the DE I decided to use my reach to my advantage. I didn’t let her take my blade and when we got close enough to hit, I made sure that I was doing so first with time to spare.
My next DE was against another leftie, but I had little or no advantage on reach with him. Unfortunately, I got tired and rambled through much of the bout without a plan. I do recall one point where I knew what I wanted to do and I went out and did it. I invited an attack to my four and then took his blade in a hard parry four with opposition and hit him. It worked well but I knew I would not get away with it more than once or twice. After that I was just didn’t come up with any good plans to use against him and he beat me.
I finished 10th and it was a B2 event, so this re-earned me an “E” rating for ’08. Yeah – I would have liked the “D” just a couple of places away, but I would have had to beat a "C" to do that and this finish was well in line with my plans for improvement this year so I am not unhappy with it.
Next –continue to work on having a plan 100% of the time and work on having better plans against lefties.
05-13-2008 09:16 PM