The Dance of Blades

Currently in Earphones: "The Count of Monte Cristo" Soundtrack by Edward Shrearmur.

OK, so this has been a while and coming, but here ya go.

The Fencing crew left from Davis around 9:30ish Friday morning. Since we were planning on staying over with the Poly crew, we had twice as much stuff, so the majority of our fencing equipment went with Aljay in his truck. The trip down was relatively uneventful, and we arrived there in the early afternoon.

I tell ya, the Poly crew's (Patrick, Ryan, and housemates) house was situated very oddly. It's a flat that was once a duplex, but had the middle wall knocked out to create a very interesting configuration of rooms and doors. Patrick had a habit of coming in by a different door every time he returned to the house, and we'd always start when he popped up seemingly out of the woodwork. All in all a very nice place, though waaay out in the boonies between a junk yard and PG&E outpost.

The upshot of being in such and odd place was what has been dubbed "Spooling." Right next to their driveway is this giant open-walled shed with large wooden spools (we think that they used to hold cables for PG&E) which vary in size but are perfect for balancing and moving about on like giant wheels. You would stand on top of one and walk forward to move backwards and backward to move forwards, kind of like a clown balancing act. Well, we had a lot of fun seeing how fast and how far we could go on them, jousting on them, and generally goofing around on them. I didn't partake because I wasn't in the mood for any big injuries, seeing that the next day we had the Tourney. It was a fun spectacle to watch, in any case.

The next day we all had a leisurely breakfast, which was the upshot of not being a novice. Novice fencers usually have the earliest call in a tourney, because they take up the most room and usually take a good amount of time to finish up. However, given that we were not Novice fencers anymore, we didn't have to make that call, and instead got to sleep in and enjoy ourselves. The one snag was that we were given mis-information about when the Advanced Foil registration closed, and both Toes and Preston missed out on doing foil as a result. It wasn't too big a deal, because Sabre was both their forte and Toes could still do Epee.

I unfortunately got stuck with some sharks in the pools for Epee (viz, way more advanced fencers than I) including the great Tom Ellison, and only made it 1-4 (That is, won one bout and lost 4 bouts out of 5). The annoying part was that my one victory was against our club president, Fez, who is an excellent Foilist (made 3rd place in the entire tourney) but is just getting in to Epee.

Then, wonder of wonders, before I knew it I won my first ever Direct Elimination. I was going up against a (Santa Cruz?) girl named Alexa who had fenced Epee for 3 years, and yet she had all of the problems I had. After my first bout in the pools in which I got my ass handed to me, TC took me aside and gave me some advice. I was (and still am, to an extent) fencing like a musician; I was too nice, thinking too much, and not having a very competitive edge. TC told me, and I paraphrase "You fence, don't you? Got all the equipment and all? Then by golly, you're an athlete!" To this, I realized he was right, I AM and athlete, and there was a mentality there that wasn't sinking in. "You've got to go in there ready to win," TC told me (paraphrasing again), "because that's what it means to be an athlete. And relax, let your actions just happen. Right now when you're attacking you're like a musket, ::imitates a delayed musket fuse and shot:: you're taking too much time. You need to be more like a contemporary rifle, ::ch-chick-BOOM!!::" In any case, this advice went directly toward my first D.E. bout.

Alexa was a nice enough girl, but after the first few touches, I realized that she had no drive. She would sit in En guard and defend, but make sparse actions against me. As much as I wanted to be nice, I ended up just taking advantage of her (errr, well, not in that way, obviously). I went in relaxed, and just let the touches happen. ::ch-chick-BOOM!!:: got a handshot, ::ch-chick-BOOM!!:: got a beat to her arm, ::ch-chick-BOOM!!:: got another handshot. In the end it was just touch and go. Granted, there wasn't a whole lot of opposition, but it was darn good practice. I walked away with the bout in my favor.

My second D.E. was much more difficult, but twice as much fun. I finally met the twin Epeeists of Cal poly, the two tall and very nordic looking Trent and Troy. I was up against Trent for my second D.E. and met him beforehand via Mr. Ryan Curtis. Trent was fun fellow, right up my alley, and we joked and talked before the match. Both Fez and Ande had given me advice as to Trent's style, so was somewhat prepared when we both hooked ourselves up to the strip.

Since both of our height advantages were null (we're roughly the same height) we both played very cautious, padding just out of each other's distance and gauging each other. The first few touches were back and forth, Trent usually waiting for a counter-attack to my attack and giving little offence. He got a shin-shot off on me, which gave me the idea to copy it. I feinted toward his hand a few times a touch afterward, then zoomed into a crouch and got him squarely on the shin. I resisted the urge to say "Didn't see that one comin', did ya!!" As the match went on, we were basically going point for point. Cody and some of the Davis crew were cheerin' me on on the sidelines. In the end, Trent won, but not before I made him sweat by getting up to 7-7 in a 10 touch match. I was leading when we stopped for our minute break, but my mind then went out the window and his came back to him for the second half. All in all, a great match. I truly said when we shook hands "Whoo! That was a great match! What fun!" We were all smiles.

If there were any other matches to mention, I'm afraid I missed them, being so occupied with Epee. However, Both Toes and Preston placed in the top 8 for Sabre, and also got medals for team Sabre. All in all, Davis did really well, and rocketed up to Second place for the Big Cup. Huzzah to all!

We decided to zoom back to Davis Saturday night rather than Sunday morning, which in retrospect was rather tiring. I regret not hanging out with the Poly crew more afterwards, but Homework called, and we can always do it when they come up for the Davis Tourney.

P.S. I have been in the company of Anja for at least an hour each time for the past few days. I'm getting the niggling suspicion that she fancies me ;). I'll say this, I've enjoyed her company very much, but to iterate what we do here would be improper. Oh, and she's been nice enough to get me some Lady Grey tea, of which you can read an interesting factoid here. My only complaint is that I need to make sure I get enough sleep. No more 8am classes for me, ever! (if I can help it).

Enough. More Later.
- James