It is hard to believe that it had been four years since I fenced competitively, and nearly that long since I last hit someone with a three foot piece of metal. Fencing in one of those things that never seems to leave me entirely though and it is not uncommon for me to be thinking about ways to collapse distance while staring out the bus window during my morning commute.

At the beginning of April, after my spring soccer team got the plug pulled on it (not enough orphans), I found myself watching Cyrus's YouTube channel and lurking back here at f.net. Soon enough I was back at the club, and four weeks later I was lugging my bag up the stairs for a Friday night C and Under Epee at Salle Auriol.

It has now been two weeks since the event, and I took a lot away from it. I have never been one to keep a tight journal or fencing diary though and thought this would be a good way to potentially organize some of my thoughts on my competitions and my continuing evolution and (ideally) progression as a fencer.

Back to the event. The results were reasonable, and frankly more than I had a right to expect considering the amount of rust I had to knock off: http://askfred.net/Results/roundResu...titor_id=15976

Results oriented analysis is the bane of my existence though, and while reasonably happy with the 2nd place finish, this was only a C and Under.

More importantly I rediscovered the legitimate holes in my game, and uncovered a few new ones as well.

I have always fenced with my feet, and my game has predominantly been based around controlling tempo and distance. But I turned 30 this year, and I am discovering that my thighs aren't quite the rocket boosters they once were, resulting in rather languid fleches.

My tip and point control came back a bit the night progressed to the point where I was able to build a reasonable offensive game plan around legitimately threatening the near targets and building compound attacks on that threat. This let me control my semi- and quarterfinal DEs (in particular) to a great extent.

Unfortunately my finals opponent simply fenced in absence and in doing so revealed what a shaky foundation my offense had been based on. What explosiveness had at the beginning of the night was reduced by fatigue and eventually my opponent realized that I was having to over commit in order to threaten deep target and I think we went from 9-8 to 15-10 in pretty short order.

Resolving the explosiveness and endurance issues will take some gym work, but that is doable. From a fencing aspect I really need to improve my second intention game. The latter problem stems from my long-time bugaboo with trusting and properly timing parry-ripostes. This period when I am rebuilding the physicality (the push) of my offensive game actually seems like a good time really buckle down and try and become a better "puller." We'll see how it goes...

I'll find out how I am doing in the short run soon enough, I'm planning on attending the Salle's Open Epee event on June 18th which should be an A event.