Bangin my head against a brick wall aaarrrggh!

[Gav]

OK guys I'm going to share my current frustration with the group and hope that a little message board therapy will help! Until recently I've been resonably competent at tourneys - nothing special but always knocking on the door. I had some real hopes that this year I could make an impression in my rankings. However, for some reason I don't have any form. This isn't a simple slum.

I don't enjoy myself (at least as much). I'm not progressing in my training. Tactictly my mind is there [at least off piste], yet I can't seem to able to apply my self to the situation in hand. I'm in a bit of bind (figuratively speaking) and looking for some advice from the board. I'd take a hiatus but that seems counterproductive (and defeatist).

So guys and gals, any advice would be apreciated.

[DamedEscrime]

Gav, I have had the same problem with focus.
Two books that I am currently reading are In Pursuit of Excellance by Terry Orlick and
Clearing the Path to Victory by Aladar Kogler.
Both give advice and techniques on mental training. Orlick is sports in general. Kogler is a fencing coach, who my coach is aquainted with, so he talks more about that. Both are applicable in and out of the piste.
Though I have not finish either book yet, I did find them helpful at my last tourny.
Good luck.
Dame

[attila]

HI Gav

I feel your pain. A difficult place to be. I would differ tho' on the productivity of a hiatus. Everyone I know who had taken some time off in the middle of a season have come back better because of a clearer mind. Else step back and take a look at your goals. Maybe you are getting frustrated because you are failing at your short term goals. Getting beat by better fencers should not be a big deal. You can still learn from a good thrashing. But if you are failing against your peers then YOU might be the problem. If this is the case I would go back to my coach and ask for a refresher is absolute basics and go from there..

Good luck

[neevel]

You need to keep in mind the notion of plateaus, dips, and rises. When you've become proficient with a certain 'toolbox' but aren't adding anything new, you're at a plateau. Your competitive perfomance will be at a steady, predictable level. To improve beyond that plateau, you'll need to add in new elements, and possibly also abandon and replace some current items in your toolbox that limit your potential.

In order to incorporate any major changes to your fencing, you're likely to go through a phase where your performance takes a dip. You've become familiar enough with the new stuff that the older stuff in no longer your 'default' (so you can't execute the old with the same readiness as you used to), but you're not yet good enough with the new to make it work reliably. Hence, you get caught 'in between'-- youre old game's been retired, but you're new game's not up to form yet.

Once you get the new elements into shape and incorporated into the rest of your fencing, you'll go into the rise, heading up to your next plateau. And then the process will start all over. After you've been through a few cycles of this you'll be sanguine about the dips, but it is certainly frustrating the first couple of times around.

You don't need to limit yourself to fencing-specific works on sports psychology. In spite of the execptionalist rhetoric that seems to be bandied about by some in the fencing community, these issues are common to just about any discipline (athletic or otherwise), and there's a huge base of work on it coming out of places (such as professional sports) that have a great deal of resouces to devote to understanding it.

-Dave

[Moonitic]

Dave,

Been there, done that. Know what helped me? Moving from the competitor to the teacher. It's amazing what working with someone else to improve THEIR skills does to your own. You HAVE to do things right...someone is looking at you as "the one who knows."

Well, that helped...along with a lesson from a Maestro. Then I had trouble with a stress fracture, and had to take time off.

[MattyCam]

Everything that Dave said is exactly the case.

There will be dips, rises and plateaus.

You just have to come to the realization that you're going to suck on some days and be unbelieveable others. Once you know that, you're fine.

Stick with it. Don't ever skip practice becasue you've been fencing bad. That's the worst thing you can do. Fence through it.

--Matt

[three_hundred_fifty_five]

Here's a suggestion and nothing more.

Practice on strict form with beginners. Tight parries, simple footwork, simple attacks. If you're sloppy with beginners, then you'll be as sloppy with advanced fencers.

Have a fellow advanced fencer drill you on more complex actions.

It sounds like you know what to do tactically but it's not happening physically and/or mentally, so I won't go into detail about things you probably already know.

Fencing beginners brings you back to simplifying your game.

[ 09-25-2001: Message edited by: three_hundred_fifty_five ]

[MikeHarm]

I found the book Karate-Do, my way of life by Gichin Funakoshi helpful.

Mike

[JniedWKU]

Hey dude, I don't know if this would be of any help, it's not a book, or a detailed explination of the process of the game, just a little side note. When I was in Little leage baseball, I had a hard time hitting the ball, but what made it bad, was that once I missed, it ticked me off. Which did nothing to help me to hit the ball the next time up, in fact I missed again, which in turn made me evern more angry. So basically, the more I missed, the more angry I got, which made me miss more, you get the idea. I would just say, to sit down, clear your head, don't worry about it very much, after all, the fate of the world is not riding on this, and just have fun. If you get whiped (like me) then fine, if you still had fun then rock on.

[sabreur]

If you are stuck, as a couple of people have noted, you are either:

o Maxed out with your present technique, so you need to figure out what the next level is and how you move to it.
o Trying to move to the next level, but suffering the mind-body disconnect that always occurs when you try to learn complex and unnatural skills (fencing qualifies in spades).

In the first case, you need to do some analysis and figure out what's next. In the second, you need to work drills--both specific to whatever you're trying to learn and general fencing drills--I find that going back and getting my footwork in order always helps me get over a learning hump. If your feet aren't right, your hand can't coordinate with your feet, and if your hand isn't coordinated with your feet, it doesn't matter how brilliantly you are thinking.

Regards, MR

[Bugaboo]

Even better books:
Zen in the Martial Arts, and
The Inner Game of Tennis.

They're all you'll ever need.