'Nuff said about that.

I have been training fairly regularly--Wednesdays at MA; weekend lessons with Istvan. No new content really. We continue to work variations on dynamic stereotyping--I have, after 20 years of fencing, finally begun to really fence--that is, to use tempo as the cornerstone of my game, and to set up situations where an opponent has a restricted set of possible responses....

I'm grinning because I did get caught out a couple of times this weekend (my first tournament in two years--went 9-1, mostly against muppets, though) by people who did the absolute wrong thing (point counter-attack into a well-developed and established attack).

I fenced well, for my first tournament in far too long. I've been biking to work a lot, and my conditioning was good. I wasn't too stressed/over-excited. I didn't fence with tempo as much as I would have liked, but had a pretty workman-like outing.

And had fun, really.

I had my iPod with me, and listened to Taj Mahal in between bouts at the beginning, which kept me loose and amused. Got tired of pulling the earbuds out, turning it off, setting it next to strip, fencing and reversing the process after a while, but it is definitely a good idea (thanks, Peach!).

Taj Mahal was a random choice of what I have on the iPod, but was excellent--I've often thought that R&B is good fencing music--syncopated and nice changes in tempo.