School starting again,

[Niceguy4186]

Ok, as far as i'm concerned, the only good part of school is the fact fencing class starts back up again :-D Classes start on the 18th and the problem is, my "rival" in my class has been going to class like twice a week durning the summer, and conditioning and all that other fun stuff. The question is, anybody have any suggestions of how i could somehow take him back down to my level? any pace i should try and set and such. Thanxs

[darius]

What's Tonya Harding doing these days?

[Peach]

How about raising yourself to his level instead?

[edew]

Originally posted by Peach
How about raising yourself to his level instead?

Well, he's a Niceguy. Nice guys don't raise their level to others. They try to take others down to their level.

[mifencer]

Sounds like someone is a little jealous. I've encountered that before, "I don't want to fence you, because I'm going to lose." At that point, I try much harder. What I'm getting at, is that you don't deserve to win. Sounds like he took the sport more serious than you, dedicated/sacrificed his time and energy. There's no quick way in learning how to fence.

I have a suggestion: train hard, get lessons, stop whining, and learn how to lose graciously.

[Niceguy4186]

ok, i kinda worded that a bit bad, i don't want to take out his knees or anything... how this, what is the best way of getting my rhythem back after 3 months off. as i stated before, my friend has been taking classes over the summer while as much as i love to fence, rent and food kinda come first...

[counter riposte]

Go workout and eliminate the 3 months of additional target area you have undoubtedly gained wilst your opponent continued to fence. If you are in HS, go join the track team and do the 800m run, which is training for endurance sprinting. You will need that in order to keep your endurance/energy during the long bouts you will be losing to him. If you are in college, find out if your college has a fencing club, and practice point control and footwork. You have to catch up to your opponent's level in order to beat him. The only way to do it, sans blade work, is endurance and footwork.

[achilleus]

I believe Zoran Tulum had the saying that every day you don't practice you is equal to 3 days.

You lose a day by not improving
You lose a day by slipping just a little
You lose a day to your opponent who is practicing and improving.

The point, there are no shortcuts. You can't magically make up not practicing for 3 months.

[Niceguy4186]

It's a college class/club we go to, we meet last year when we both started the 101 class during the winter quarter. I havn'e gained any weight sense school let out, if anything i lost a few (no partys = no beer = no beer belly) right now i'm at 5'10 and 155 or so, my friend is all skin and bones, he's like 6'2 and 140

[three_hundred_fifty_five]

If you already know you are not up to his level, consider yourself screwed.

[counter riposte]

Originally posted by three_hundred_fifty_five
If you already know you are not up to his level, consider yourself screwed.

Bwahhhhhahahahahahahaha!
LMAO!

[135711]

i agree with peach. you'll have to fence up to his level, you'll just have to try harder, but it will be to your benefit. you're lucky, you've got fencing in school, most of us have to search around for it. ...

[achilleus]

Originally posted by Peach
How about raising yourself to his level instead?

While this is the ideal, it is possible to beat opponents better than you, not consistently of course but in competitions you can.

During the bout, you must bring a better opponent down to your level. Often times you'll see a big upset in tournaments, and yes we all say the good fencer just wasn't fencing well. But many times we overlook the fact that their opponent made them fence badly.

How many times in sports do we here one team say, we played down to our opponents level?

So, it is possible to do it, but not for long. And I wouldn't recommend doing it during practice.