When I saw that Medeo was hosting a veteran tournament a week before Pittsburgh, I had to go. It was a small but good-quality for a veteran event--Vince Paragano, Lisa Roqué, George Drukarov, Michael and Mary Malecki, and Robert Lombardi. I found to my surprise when I got there that Nickolay Logatchov from Denver is now at Medeo. Their gain, Colorado Fencing's loss, but I wish I knew what the story was. At any rate, it was nice to see him.

It was a friendly tournament with a lot of cheerful talk. We fenced a pool of seven and DE's with Nickolay refereeing, and I had some good bouts. George set up some nice blade actions and I had to go to tempo change to get to him, though our bout score doesn't reflect the difficulty I had with him, as I beat him 5-0; Mary was fencing differently than the last time we bouted, and got three touches on me, and Michael got two. Vince beat me in the pool by one touch, and I broke a blade straightening it in that bout, but I'll be in Pittsburgh next week and can pick up some more. Robert Lombardi didn't know me, so I beat him 5-0 in the pool.

Vince lost to Lisa by three touches, and my only loss was to him by one, so I came out seeded first and had a bye. Robert beat George 10-9, so he was my first DE, and he improved from the pool, making some very nice adjustments in his distance and in his attack. That meant I had Vince, who came out strong in the first half and was leading at the break. I got annoyed at him because in passing he shoved my parry down, out-muscling me and hurting my shoulder, but on reflection I told him I shouldn't have been shoving back. I ended up getting a couple of good touches and a couple of lucky ones, and beat him to get a nice medal.

I asked Lisa to give me a DE afterwards so I could get some practice with a strong woman, and she gave me a really good bout. If she uses the strip more aggressively I think she could go far, as she has a strong attack and good tactical sense.

During the tournament, Nickolay wasn't letting me off the hook--he was making me show a strong sharp attack if I wanted to take it over or do attack in prep, so by the time I got to Vince I was doing much better. I knew exactly what Nickolay was doing, and it was very helpful; that's one of the nice things about having a referee who is a coach At least at a local tournament like this one! Maybe I'll go up on a Saturday for the class at Medeo one of these days, if he's running them.

It was worth the hour and half drive each way, but it wasn't a very intense workout, so since I got back when it was still light out, I took a forty-minute walk when I got home.