Pretty funny, my last entry was called cram training and now there's an article on the main page about it.
Dallas didn't go well. I spent most of the night before the competition coughing and then the morning of I was trying to make my weapons work.
None of these are really decent excuses because it was my mental state that was not normal for this competition. I didn't take enough risks this competition. My mental state was shown perfectly when I lost my first pool match 1-0 in overtime because I did an attack from too far away against my opponent with priority. When I think back I really should have fenced the match right from the get go and not allowed it to get to overtime. I finished my pool 4-2 with a low indicator so I wound up in the 80s for seeding. I warmed up again and got ready for a rough d.e. path. In my first round i had a lefty named Fink. I practiced some of the stuff I thought I would need for the next match against Mo (another lefty) but while I was trying some stuff out I ended up getting hit a lot and the match between Fink and I was fairly close until the very end. He had very solid parries and basics but his preparation was too big and slow.
In the next round against Mo I started off badly by allowing the same kind of touches that I had scored against Fink (direct fleches in preparation). He was up 3-1 by the end of the 1st. One of the issues that i recognized later was that his tip was attacking me in a fairly awkward position, fairly high on my shoulder making 6 difficult to take (my best parry). I switched it up to taking 4 but still found his fleches in preparation difficult to parry, and when i did parry, difficult to reposte against. The one action that I could land consistently was a push on the blade in 4 followed by a coupé to the arm. However it was not enough to ever gain the lead and he ended up being ahead by 2 with just a few seconds remaining and I sprinted into his point a few times to give him the win.
I think most of my problems here were mental but even so had roots in the way that I felt weak coming into this competition. Being sick and slightly out of shape shot my self-confidence and that killed my game.
11-14-2007 07:02 PM