Being the last week of the month, we practiced being in “tournament” mode. We did a 15-touche round-robin of all the epeeists. Every bout was intended to simulate tournament conditions. I did fairly well, winning half my bouts. I lost badly only to my coach, but he has my game down. Others were close matches. The new guy (coming back after a 20 year hiatus) nearly beat me. Later, when I fenced MF, I came back from a 4 point deficit at the 1st 3-minute break to ultimately win the bout. Lots of clean, single touches for each of us.

After the bouting, El Chucko remembered that he and I wanted to work on some things:

Lesson one – view your actions from your opponent’s perspective. I KNOW I’m supposed to parry/bind with the forte of the blade and keep the point threatening target. I THINK that’s what I’m doing. In REALITY I am not doing so as much as I think that I am. That’s what is causing my binding thrusts to go wide. I have to work the forte more and the foible less.

Lesson two – take your opponent’s beats away from them. I observed to El Chucko that beats work best for me when my opponent’s blade is not lined up parallel to mine. He agreed and pointed out that if I want to defeat my opponent’s beats I should do the same. (hitting forehead with palm of hand) Of course! The small lesson here is that I can prevent (or reduce the effectiveness of) many beat attacks with proper blade positioning. The big lesson is that I need to take note of what my opponents are doing that makes life difficult for me, then incorporate that into my game. If I do that, and just follow “good fencing practices”, I should be able to become a major PItA to my opponents.