I got my hair cut in the morning and went to yoga, where once again I was the only student and once again my earnest little teacher tried to make me do things my body will not do. The phrase "a** over teakettle" comes to mind. However, it felt good once it was over. As I was getting ready to go the tournament, my friend Mary called from Chicago, and as always she wanted to talk for an hour, even though I was carrying the phone around the house getting everything together for the tournament and finally had to cut her off in order to get out of the house in time.
We had 22 entries for the mixed event at FAP, a nice distribution of classifications as well as an assortment of males and females. It was mostly self-refereed, though Marcus Howard arrived and took on a good deal of the refereeing toward the end of the pool and into the DE's. I had Jude Keenan from Williamsport and Oliver Elbert from BCAF in my pool (both finished in the top four) as well as Benjamin Loft from FASJ, John Molloy and Donna Yasmanovich from FAP and Jimmy Ciccone from Youngstown State University. I lost to Jude, Oliver, and Benjamin, and beat John, Donna, and Jimmy, and came out seeded eleventh.
My first DE was against Sarah Bricault from Swarthmore, which I won--she had good energy and attacked with intensity, and was competent enough that I could make her see what I wanted her to see. My second was against Phillip Grudzina from FASJ and I lost that 8-15--he had a nice slow start and didn't rush, so I couldn't do a whole lot with him. My last touch was a third-intention line action, though, so I wasn't displeased with that. At the end of the day I finished eleventh.
My take on today? Basically I'm not fencing. I don't seem to know how to fence. This is par for the course for the month before Summer Nationals, and a good reason why I'm glad I made the vet team with results from the two Vet NACs instead of hoping to do well at Summer Nationals. I feel as if last year, when I wasn't to Australia and therefore didn't much care, and then this year having a tough year at work, has made me much less of a competitor. I just don't seem to have the right focus. However, after a week off from work and exercise every day, plus eating right, I do feel physically much fitter.
I refereed a number of the DEs. Ahren, whose knees were bothering him, defeated Grudzina 15-13, then barely beat Oliver Elbert 15-14, and then won the gold medal bout against Jude Keenan 15-14. I have no idea how he did it. He already earned his B at the last tournament, but it hasn't showed up yet on the USFA's records, so at any rate he earned it again.
Oliver renewed his C, as did Jude, and Andrew Schroeder went from an E to a well-deserved C. Both Oliver and Jude are looking good; Oliver still tends to try to rush his attacks when he gets tired, but he's got a deeper game than he used to. Though Jude missed his B by one touch I think he's close; he's clean with good timing and some nice actions. I wish the classifications were a tad more inflated in sabre--it's so easy to get an A event in epee and next to impossible in sabre. At least this one was well-attended enough by enough competent people that it didn't matter I didn't get into the eight.
Tomorrow morning I'm having brunch with my brother and sister and then I'm trucking over to the club for a training day. Should be pleasant.
06-14-2008 08:27 PM