Fenced a tournament a couple weeks ago and forgot to update.

Went up to Quebec City for Estoc which is always a bunch of fun since there is both an individual and a team event.

We went down the night before so we could wake up at a reasonable hour for the competition. At the hotel I ended up drawing the short straw and got stuck sharing a bed with Jean. It worked out pretty well though, because I snore pretty badly and he's the only one who doesn't notice it.

The individual competition has two rounds of pools and then a DE table.

First round I did pretty well, losing one match against Max Lavoie who was fencing great. I had a nice comeback against Max Gerin after being down 3-0.
In the second round I started to get a bit tired and fenced a little worse. I lost two - one 5-4 against Hugues and one 5-1 against Fred after talking a bunch of trash.

I was seeded ok - 10th - but had a terrible path in the tableau. First round I had a young kid from Estoc and we had a fun quick match. Next up I had Jean who hadn't done great in pools either (7th). I was a little too impatient and on-edge against him. He used his size advantage (both height and muscle) to unsettle me and get me to go at bad times. There were a lot of close actions but he controlled me well for a pretty big win. Next time I have to spend more time drawing him out and picking his hand because his size makes it tough to go to the body. When I try he ends up going for a strong, late parry 8 or a disengage of my prise de fer.

So I lost to Jean and then Jean lost to Tigi, so it was a pretty bad part of the bracket to be in. Tigran beat Charles in the semi and then lost to Tomy in the final.

That night all the Brebeuf and Estoc fencers went out to dinner together and Arnaud and I got a couple beers and watched some curling.

Our teams the next day were different than usual. The A team was Tigran, Jean and Arnaud and I got put on the B team with Ben and Carl. I was actually kind of happy about the decision because, since I haven't been training enough my fencing has been pretty inconsistent and though I know I can fence really well at times still, I didn't want to mess things up for the team.
Also, I got to be the anchor which I haven't done at Brebeuf... ever I think. I've always been the #3 fencer on the A team and since Tigran (the anchor for the Canadian team) joined Brebeuf I knew I wouldn't get a shot. Back at Dynamo, I was the anchor for the B team one year at nationals. That was one of my best fencing memories as we took out a strong SRN team to make the top-8. Two years ago, I anchored the Quebec junior team to a gold medal which was also a blast.

Unfortunately we didn't really have any close matches so there was no pressure. I like team pressure a lot. It's different than individual pressure. I like having other people's hopes riding on my back - when I win individually it's nice for me. When I win for my team I make 3 other people, plus a coach or two, plus other guys from my club happy - it's a great feeling.
We blew out Estoc B and Brebeuf C and got beaten pretty badly by Estoc A and Brebeuf A. I beat Arnaud which was nice since, even though I said I didn't mind him taking my spot on the team, I wanted to prove I was better than him. Even though I took him head-to-head, Arnaud fenced AMAZING against Estoc A. He beat Tomy and I think Charles as well. I was happy because everyone on Brebeuf A fenced just great, Jean and Arnaud especially, and Tigran's always good.

In the final rankings Brebeuf A was first, Estoc A was 2nd and we were 3rd.

That was maybe 3 weeks ago and since then I've been playing a lot of basketball and training the McGill team but I hadn't been to a training at Brebeuf until yesterday.
Yesterday was the first training in the new salle, which has been under construction for the past 3 years. The final product is perfect. It's not as pretty as NWFC or RCFC or probably the new SAS (but I haven't seen that one in person yet) but it is absolutely perfect for training. The room is immense - 12 full-size strips - with enough space in-between. The wires are all done through the ceiling so it has a nice clean look and there are trapdoors at both ends of each strip where the reels are stored when we're not using them. Finally, one wall of the salle is a mirror, with a retractable curtain to cover it. The floor is kind of rubbery and provides great support and grip. Again, it's not fancy, but it is perfect. Clean, simple, and it has everything that we could need.
So I went yesterday and there were a good 20-25 fencers. The women's national team is in town for a training camp so they were there and Tigran and Vince have been training there so we had half the men's team too. We started off with a great game of patate chaude and then did a tournament. One pool for all the men, one for all the women. I got the top seed on the 12-person men's side and then we took the top 4 seeded women and seeded them into the men's table 13, 14, 15 and 16. I fenced the 16 seed, who was French and had a french grip. I took my time and was attentive. Usually I hate fencing women but I tried to concentrate on hitting to the hand and arm rather than the body and enjoyed it a lot more than usual.
Next up I had a kid from my club who's a lefty french gripper and we had an interesting one, we started off with 4 doubles and a single apiece. I kept going with the strategy of going into him for doubles and waiting for mistakes. It worked since he fleched twice from too far for easy parry-ripostes. In the semi I fenced Vince Pelletier. The previous time we fenced in training he had beaten me 15-3 and said I looked like I was moving in slow-motion. Since then I got back in shape by playing a lot of basketball and beat him 15-10. I gave him a lot of different looks by fencing with my arm partially extended and high and in absence du fer low at different points in the match. I got some good straight attacks to the hand and arm, some good parries and eventually some good prise de fers. My take 6 fleche has gotten better recently and it worked really well against him and Marc-André a while ago.
In the final I fenced Matthieu and he won 15-14. I wasn't as mentally dialed in for this one since I thought I'd already won the competition. I ended up getting tired and pressing too hard. I have to remember to draw fencers like him out.