So Atlanta was the last competition of the season for Canadian junior and cadet team selections. I came into it 5th in junior and I think I went out of it in the same place - I wasn't entirely disappointed with the competition but I was upset with my lack of consistency and (of course) I was upset with not making the team.
My pool in Div 1 was pretty strong, with myself and Greenhouse both being underseeded. He absolutely smoked me and then I also got edged by Adam and someone else. I was fencing very poorly at the beginning of the pool and started out 1-3. I won my last 2 and though I wasn't happy with my record I did like that I was going into the De's with some positive momentum.
My first round De was against a french-gripper named Blum. He was interesting to fence because I found it very difficult to get single lights off of him. I generally controlled the action and the distance but found myself surprised to see doubles on the machine when I thought I had scored singles. I won that one 15-14 and despite the score the match did not feel all that close so I didn't really get too worried at any point.
My next round I had Hurme - this was not unexpected because I knew that I would have to knock off a high seed early because of my poor pool results.
We had a good match but he changed his attacks a bit when I was up 9-7 and was able to come back and win it 15-13. I felt that I fenced well in the match so wasn't too disappointed about losing.
On the off day a bunch of the canadians went and watched the thrashers play against the oilers. The game started at 2 pm which is really early for a hockey game and (probably because of that) the 1st period was some of the worst hockey I've seen in a long time. The play heated up in the 2nd and 3rd and the end result was a 4-2 victory for Edmonton (who I half-support because they're canadian but half-detest because they're in the same division as my canucks).
The next day was junior and again I woke up verrry slowly in my pool. Before I was fully aware of what was happening I had gone 2-4 in my junior pool. In terms of excuses for that, I did have an unusually hard pool (again) and am not generally as good in pool matches as eliminations.
Anyway I realized that I couldn't do anything about it after the fact and just went around talking and joking with people I knew at the competition to get my mind off of it. It really didn't help that pretty much all the other canadians had gone 5-1 or so and came up to ask me how i had done. My customary response now whenever I have a really bad pool is to use a very positive word (like fantastic, incredible or super) so that the other person will then proceed to ask "6-0?" and I can say 2-4 or 3-3 or whatever terrible result it was. I find that as long as I can laugh at it I can usually get my mind refreshed for the next round.
In my first round De I had a guy who had done similarly to me in the pools so we had to fence to make the 128. I started off just feeling him out slowly and started to get some touches off his impatient attacks. After a minute I felt comfortable enough to attack on my own. With about 25 seconds left in the period I was up 12-4 or so and one of my teammates yelled at me to finish it that period. I thought it was a good idea to finish quicker and have longer to rest so I set up a few quick doubles to finish it 15-6.
In the next round I had a high seed, Gurnowski, who was the punishment for my poor placement in pools (what an alliteration). I had fenced him once at a camp in New york about a month ago and had watched him knock one of my teammates into rep in div 1. He had done very well in div 1 but I figured he had a style that I matched up fairly well against. He's a tall lefty french gripper with a good toe touch so I knew what I needed to concentrate on most was my distance. I decided to fence the match in my end of the strip, mostly just beyond the 2 meter warning line. I knew if I pushed too hard he'd be able to pick me off with long lunges to the foot so I didn't push too hard but stayed active with my feet. I beat his blade a bit but mostly just moved in and out and watched the distance. When he took too big of a step forward and closed the distance too much I did a direct fleche. The first one I did was a single and I yelled like crazy after it - I may have looked like I was celebrating too much prematurely but against a fencer like that the first touch is all-important. If I had had to press him the result would probably have been very different. In the end i think in the whole match I got 1 parry-riposte, 1 counter-attack and 13 direct fleches. Towards the end of the match he started being more active and pushing harder and he hit me with a couple of duck counterattacks. I adjusted by doing more bodyfeints and moving my feet more for a final of 15-9.
In the next match I had a more classically american fencer (pistol grip and likes to take the blade) and I beat him 15-7 by doing mainly disengage attacks and counter-attacks.
The next match was against Yergler, one of the guys who's poised to make both the cadet and junior team and he beat me up pretty badly. I fenced him about a year and a half before in a pool and had no real problems so I was a little too confident going in.
Being Canadian I'm not very accustomed to repechage and was a little bit out of it for my next match. I drew a canadian with whom I've had a lot of close matches in the past and ended up missing a lot of my disengage attacks to lose 15-13.
The tournament was ok overall fencing-wise but was poor in terms of the end results. I need to work hard at fencing at the same level more consistently and I really need to warm up more earlier so that I can fence better in pools and give myself some easier paths
01-23-2008 04:37 PM