Christie Griffith saw from the last blog entry that I wasn't getting much practice, so she asked me if I'd like her to come to the club and bout with me. It really made my week, because I was feeling rather discouraged.

The last time I saw her was in the spring, when she was nearing the end of college and all the accumulated stress involved, and so when I saw her tonight I was impressed at how great she looked. She has a new job at Vertex Fitness in Bryn Mawr, which sounds like a really good personal training center, and she said she has been going through their workouts and talked about them to me. It sounds like a good program. I may go out there - it's not far from my work - once I'm done with World Veterans and the first NAC. I really have to get back into better physical shape, and she has a deep background in fencing and is not only sensible but professional. The guys I went to for a while were sort of making it up as they went along, and my present fitness center is pleasant but not really geared towards athletes.

It was great fencing with her, even though I couldn't do it for long because it was the end of my fencing time. She got her distance and footwork back very rapidly, and when Ahren told me it was time for a lesson I got him to referee a ten-touch bout between us. My heart was really chugging like crazy by the time I was done.

It was actually pretty busy tonight--Donna was there, and even Kiersten, whom I haven't seen for a while, as well as Ella, Tim, and Dick. I fenced everyone except Kiersten. The highlight was fencing Christie, though. She hit me in preparation every time I rushed, ran me down with good acceleration if I didn't pull the distance properly, set up her actions, and was tactically solid. I really had to adjust, and I had to do it while wondering if my heart was going to jump out of my chest.

My lesson with Ahren was pretty basic, as it has been lately, but that was fine. We worked on four parries one target, first stationary, next with retreats, then with lunge. He asked me if I preferred to do early retreat or late retreat, and I said early retreat, which really has to be double retreat. It was a hard workout.

The kids started Tuesday, and today was the first normal day of classes, but I have tomorrow off and I've been trying to be relaxed, so I feel pretty good. We'll see.