Two years ago, I missed the two tournaments I'd most looked forward to - the PdF Memorial Day Round Robin and the Pomme de Terre. Busy recuperating from knee surgery for a torn meniscus. I swore I'd make it to both the year after that. Instead, I was busy recuperating from a shin splint (the MDRR) and then a broken foot (the PdT). I even missed the Vets' Challenge in the fall. This year, oh yes, I was going to make it... to all of them. Registration opened for the tournaments, and I immediately

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Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. Well, maybe not sinned, but the intent to poach is ever-present in my heart. It's this community center thing again.

Last week, one of the kids in our basic (intro) class joined me at my club on my usual sabre/foil night. (No, I do not do foil anymore, but I'm happy to introduce new folks around.) He and his mom had done things the right way, asking the main instructor about alternative programs, because he wanted to fence more seriously. Of course,

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I help teach fencing classes in my town's rec center. (OK, I'm just the side-kick. I don't get paid. But it teaches me to teach. I play Bad Cop to the main instructor's Good Cop - the unspoken threat of "behave or you'll be doing footwork with Susan" is always present.) We teach primarily foil - dry foil. (I know, "Ugh.") And we primarily crank out some pretty awful fencers, but hey, they have a lot of fun, and keep coming back, year after year. We've had very little luck getting

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All work and no play makes swordwench a dull girl.

I reffed a 5-team high school meet all day Saturday. It was *such* a breeze. I wound up doing girls' epee, and my biggest complaint is... that nothing happened. Oh, sure, there were some weapon failures, but that was about it. Not one actual fleche all day (though one girl actually ran at her opponents a few times, which weirded everyone out). No crossing lateral boundaries. One off-strip floor touch. I did consider carding one girl

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Reffed a mixed C/Under foil event yesterday morning, and then the mixed epee in the afternoon. (My apologies to anyone who spent last night cursing me out.) World of difference between my comfort level on those two. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with having DONE the epee reffing before (not to mention the fact that epee is sometimes a whole lotta nothing till something catastrophic occurs). But also, I'm just. Not. Comfortable. With foil reffing. Yet. And apparently, it showed. Overall – how did

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