Turkey Meet: A Fowl Trek
As the year draws nearer to our country's favorite feasting holiday, the competitive fencing season also finds itself shifting into second gear. A quick glance at my recent posts would show a high percentage of posts about tournaments. This one only serves to strengthen the average.
The Turkey Meet is a one day event that comes right after a high school event, usually the weekend before Thanksgiving. It is called the Turkey Meet because in addition to a trophy, the winner of each event pulls a number out of a hat and a turkey is raffled to one of the participants in that event. It is held in Waukesha, WI, a bit of drive, but it is still closer than going the extra two hours needed to get to Chicago. Chris and I set out Saturday afternoon and got into town shortly after nine.
It was, more or less at this point, the moment we realized that we didn't know where the hotel was. See... since the high school meet was on Saturday, we had taken an extra room the parents had reserved, we didn't make the arrangements ourselves. So, we were driving around town looking for a particular hotel chain to no avail.
We finally decided to stop at a bar for a drink and then see if we could get a phone book or ask directions or something. And since we decided to leave shortly after the Penn State game got underway, I spent the first five minute gawping at the television watching for the result of said game. The Lions had gotten to a shaky start from what I remembered, but had soundly beat the Spartans in the end and I was a happy fish.
After a beer, some chatter and fruitless research through a couple of phonebooks, we finally resorted to calling the one parent to see if we could get a hold of hime. As luck would have it, he was in. I told him that we were in Waukesha but couldn't find the hotel. As it turns out, we misheard the name of the chain and the hotel we sought was right across the highway from us. We squared up our tab, hopped across and bedded down for the night.
The next morning we quickly got our gear together and went down to the venue. Foil was first and due to my last performance in fencing foil and epee on the same day, I decided not to participate. Instead, I dropped Chris off and then went out for some breakfast.
While ordering my usual fare in this situations, there was some Christmas muzak playing in the background and the waitress had Scrooged a little bit by saying that it was still too early to play that stuff. I remarked that if there were more popular songs about Thanksgiving that it might serve to stem the yuletide a bit. The thing is that the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. So, someone... get cracking on some Turkey Day carols, will you?
I made my way back to the venue and after some chatting and catching up with some of the other folks who showed up, the epee event got underway. There were roughly 30 of us there, but it wasn't a very strong event. This is because most of the participants were the kids from the high school meet.
The people in my pool turned out to be Tyson, Dave, Chuck, Jann and Mary. Many of them were still fencing in the foil event, currently in its elimination phase so we ended up doing the pools completely out of order with whatever bodies we had available.
In fact, I did a couple in a row with Tyson first. I've fenced him before but I cannot remember which weapon it was. Probably foil. In any case, he's about the same size as me and after the first touch, it became apparent that I hadn't warmed up enough.
I figured that I could attack into him, you know, really press the distance to him. This strategy worked for about one touch. Otherwise, he was picking me apart with curiously familiar infighting techniques. It makes you wonder why I kept attacking him, but I did. It's a hard thing to be beaten at your one game, but that is what happened and I lost the bout 1-5. Tyson was certainly grateful that he pulled me when I was still cold and remarked as such.
Which means I probably shouldn't have fenced Dave right after that. Dave is a pretty good foil fencer, a bit intense though. When losing, he'll angrily rant to himself and you can help but feel amused by it and somewhat insulted if you are his opponent because invaribly his rant is about him losing to an inferior fencer. Cute.
In my bout with him, he got off to a quick lead attacking me with some nice foil techniques that took advantage of my flat feet. I did start to kick into gear when he had me down 1-4. I snuck a few clever shots on his hand and arm before he adjusted and put me away 3-5.
With the first two bouts in the toilet, I had no room for error if I was going to be seeded in any respectable spot. Chuck was my initial step towards redemption. Again, I found myself fencing from a deficit because, though inexperienced, his aggression was such that it took me off guard. Once I figured out and expanded the distance, it was pretty easy to turn the tables and I won the bout 5-2.
Jann was next and I was wary. She was probably the second best in our pool as far as epee experience. She has a wonderful way of putting her point where your arm is going to be. I was prepared for this and keep her searching for my blade as I fleched at her shoulder. It was remarkably effective. 5-1.
Mary was my last bout. She was relatively inexperienced and though her bladework was pretty good, her footwork quickly became her downfall. 5-1.
Surprisingly, my 3-2 record was enough for me to win the pool since all of the rest of them also came out around 3-2. I just had better indicators.
This placed me 7th of all places going into the DEs. First up was a guy named Sean. He was a little taller than me and comes from the classical form of fencing. Classical fencing is generally done without electronic equipment and focused more on the strategy rather than the result. In a way, they are trying to preserve the dueling sense of the sport.
I took it as an opportunity to see how the styles differed. His blade control was excellent but noticed that the decisionmaking was slower. It almost seemed like he'd take a half a heartbeat between each action, surely to size up any reaction I might have.
It was this slight pause that gave me an advantage. I would get him to bite on a feint and then attack into that moment where he was deciding his next move. I figured that he would not let me get away with too much infighting either, but I had a definite edge when we were up close to each other. The score doesn't reflect the amount of work I put into it because it really was a good fencer, but I felt like I was more in the moment of the touch than he was. 15-5.
My second DE was against Mr. 3-2. I didn't get his name, but I did catch him talking to a clubmate of his about his pools. He had went 3-2 as I did and I had said as much. Mr. 3-2 was a taller guy and moved pretty well on the strip. I had assumed that he was going to come full bore at me and he might have had I not hit him in the hand and then the foot for the first two touches.
With him backed off, I had more time to work the action to my advantage and proceeded to score almost at will. By the time I had him at 7-2, I could tell by his motion that he had given up the fight. In a sense, I should have been happy because I knew that I had the bout locked up but I still felt the sadness in the his unconscious decision to give up. He got a few more touches, but that was more due to my mistakes than any effort on his part. Had he stuck with it, he probably could have turned it into a rally. You never know until you try. 15-5.
Right after the bout, I sat down next to another competitor. He was curious about why I kept the winning margin so large when I knew I had the bout won. I told him that I had slackened up my game a bit, but that the touches still fell in my favor... also that I didn't want to underestimate my opponent. He understood my reasoning, I guess just misjudging how much the momentum had switched to my favor.
Next up was Matt. Matt is one of the A-rated fencers and I've had a bit of a recurrent rivalry with him. Most of the tournaments we are in together, we end up crossing swords at some point. He also wins most of them too, but that's okay. He's a pretty cool guy and fun to fence.
He uses a lot of absence of blade. Matt just keeps his point away from where you can even touch it and then strikes in from the side first at the hand, and then closes to hit you in the side. It was this along with variations on the theme that pulled up out to a 1-4 lead. I then stepped up, finding a way to fleche at him when he wasn't prepared to retreat as well as closing the distance to pull off some infighting.
I really didn't eat too much into his lead at the end of the first period. However, it looked like I was working him harder than he did me. I kept pressing and pressing and closed the lead a little more by the end of the second period. He was noticably winded and in the back of my mind I started to see a way of defeating his strategy. He had even realized this and mixed up his approach to me a little bit.
By the third period, he was ahead by a couple of points. He extended it by a touch before I came back at him. Matt finally put me up against the wall when he got to 14. I then rallied, working off of his exhaustion and controlling the bout quite handily. All it takes is one mistake, one fluke though... I had lunged in, inside his guard and though I caught him flat-footed, I had just missed him underneath the left arm. I tried to remise to get the touch, but couldn't pull it off before he found me with one of his own attacks. I really shouldn't screw around in close quarters trying to make a bad touch good with such an experienced fencer.
So, I ended up where I started off, 7th. Not my best, but better than I had been fencing. I certainly had Matt's number... that is, until I didn't.
And though many folks from my club walked away with a turkey, I was not one of them. It was a one in thirty chance anyway.
The Turkey Meet is a one day event that comes right after a high school event, usually the weekend before Thanksgiving. It is called the Turkey Meet because in addition to a trophy, the winner of each event pulls a number out of a hat and a turkey is raffled to one of the participants in that event. It is held in Waukesha, WI, a bit of drive, but it is still closer than going the extra two hours needed to get to Chicago. Chris and I set out Saturday afternoon and got into town shortly after nine.
It was, more or less at this point, the moment we realized that we didn't know where the hotel was. See... since the high school meet was on Saturday, we had taken an extra room the parents had reserved, we didn't make the arrangements ourselves. So, we were driving around town looking for a particular hotel chain to no avail.
We finally decided to stop at a bar for a drink and then see if we could get a phone book or ask directions or something. And since we decided to leave shortly after the Penn State game got underway, I spent the first five minute gawping at the television watching for the result of said game. The Lions had gotten to a shaky start from what I remembered, but had soundly beat the Spartans in the end and I was a happy fish.
After a beer, some chatter and fruitless research through a couple of phonebooks, we finally resorted to calling the one parent to see if we could get a hold of hime. As luck would have it, he was in. I told him that we were in Waukesha but couldn't find the hotel. As it turns out, we misheard the name of the chain and the hotel we sought was right across the highway from us. We squared up our tab, hopped across and bedded down for the night.
The next morning we quickly got our gear together and went down to the venue. Foil was first and due to my last performance in fencing foil and epee on the same day, I decided not to participate. Instead, I dropped Chris off and then went out for some breakfast.
While ordering my usual fare in this situations, there was some Christmas muzak playing in the background and the waitress had Scrooged a little bit by saying that it was still too early to play that stuff. I remarked that if there were more popular songs about Thanksgiving that it might serve to stem the yuletide a bit. The thing is that the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. So, someone... get cracking on some Turkey Day carols, will you?
I made my way back to the venue and after some chatting and catching up with some of the other folks who showed up, the epee event got underway. There were roughly 30 of us there, but it wasn't a very strong event. This is because most of the participants were the kids from the high school meet.
The people in my pool turned out to be Tyson, Dave, Chuck, Jann and Mary. Many of them were still fencing in the foil event, currently in its elimination phase so we ended up doing the pools completely out of order with whatever bodies we had available.
In fact, I did a couple in a row with Tyson first. I've fenced him before but I cannot remember which weapon it was. Probably foil. In any case, he's about the same size as me and after the first touch, it became apparent that I hadn't warmed up enough.
I figured that I could attack into him, you know, really press the distance to him. This strategy worked for about one touch. Otherwise, he was picking me apart with curiously familiar infighting techniques. It makes you wonder why I kept attacking him, but I did. It's a hard thing to be beaten at your one game, but that is what happened and I lost the bout 1-5. Tyson was certainly grateful that he pulled me when I was still cold and remarked as such.
Which means I probably shouldn't have fenced Dave right after that. Dave is a pretty good foil fencer, a bit intense though. When losing, he'll angrily rant to himself and you can help but feel amused by it and somewhat insulted if you are his opponent because invaribly his rant is about him losing to an inferior fencer. Cute.
In my bout with him, he got off to a quick lead attacking me with some nice foil techniques that took advantage of my flat feet. I did start to kick into gear when he had me down 1-4. I snuck a few clever shots on his hand and arm before he adjusted and put me away 3-5.
With the first two bouts in the toilet, I had no room for error if I was going to be seeded in any respectable spot. Chuck was my initial step towards redemption. Again, I found myself fencing from a deficit because, though inexperienced, his aggression was such that it took me off guard. Once I figured out and expanded the distance, it was pretty easy to turn the tables and I won the bout 5-2.
Jann was next and I was wary. She was probably the second best in our pool as far as epee experience. She has a wonderful way of putting her point where your arm is going to be. I was prepared for this and keep her searching for my blade as I fleched at her shoulder. It was remarkably effective. 5-1.
Mary was my last bout. She was relatively inexperienced and though her bladework was pretty good, her footwork quickly became her downfall. 5-1.
Surprisingly, my 3-2 record was enough for me to win the pool since all of the rest of them also came out around 3-2. I just had better indicators.
This placed me 7th of all places going into the DEs. First up was a guy named Sean. He was a little taller than me and comes from the classical form of fencing. Classical fencing is generally done without electronic equipment and focused more on the strategy rather than the result. In a way, they are trying to preserve the dueling sense of the sport.
I took it as an opportunity to see how the styles differed. His blade control was excellent but noticed that the decisionmaking was slower. It almost seemed like he'd take a half a heartbeat between each action, surely to size up any reaction I might have.
It was this slight pause that gave me an advantage. I would get him to bite on a feint and then attack into that moment where he was deciding his next move. I figured that he would not let me get away with too much infighting either, but I had a definite edge when we were up close to each other. The score doesn't reflect the amount of work I put into it because it really was a good fencer, but I felt like I was more in the moment of the touch than he was. 15-5.
My second DE was against Mr. 3-2. I didn't get his name, but I did catch him talking to a clubmate of his about his pools. He had went 3-2 as I did and I had said as much. Mr. 3-2 was a taller guy and moved pretty well on the strip. I had assumed that he was going to come full bore at me and he might have had I not hit him in the hand and then the foot for the first two touches.
With him backed off, I had more time to work the action to my advantage and proceeded to score almost at will. By the time I had him at 7-2, I could tell by his motion that he had given up the fight. In a sense, I should have been happy because I knew that I had the bout locked up but I still felt the sadness in the his unconscious decision to give up. He got a few more touches, but that was more due to my mistakes than any effort on his part. Had he stuck with it, he probably could have turned it into a rally. You never know until you try. 15-5.
Right after the bout, I sat down next to another competitor. He was curious about why I kept the winning margin so large when I knew I had the bout won. I told him that I had slackened up my game a bit, but that the touches still fell in my favor... also that I didn't want to underestimate my opponent. He understood my reasoning, I guess just misjudging how much the momentum had switched to my favor.
Next up was Matt. Matt is one of the A-rated fencers and I've had a bit of a recurrent rivalry with him. Most of the tournaments we are in together, we end up crossing swords at some point. He also wins most of them too, but that's okay. He's a pretty cool guy and fun to fence.
He uses a lot of absence of blade. Matt just keeps his point away from where you can even touch it and then strikes in from the side first at the hand, and then closes to hit you in the side. It was this along with variations on the theme that pulled up out to a 1-4 lead. I then stepped up, finding a way to fleche at him when he wasn't prepared to retreat as well as closing the distance to pull off some infighting.
I really didn't eat too much into his lead at the end of the first period. However, it looked like I was working him harder than he did me. I kept pressing and pressing and closed the lead a little more by the end of the second period. He was noticably winded and in the back of my mind I started to see a way of defeating his strategy. He had even realized this and mixed up his approach to me a little bit.
By the third period, he was ahead by a couple of points. He extended it by a touch before I came back at him. Matt finally put me up against the wall when he got to 14. I then rallied, working off of his exhaustion and controlling the bout quite handily. All it takes is one mistake, one fluke though... I had lunged in, inside his guard and though I caught him flat-footed, I had just missed him underneath the left arm. I tried to remise to get the touch, but couldn't pull it off before he found me with one of his own attacks. I really shouldn't screw around in close quarters trying to make a bad touch good with such an experienced fencer.
So, I ended up where I started off, 7th. Not my best, but better than I had been fencing. I certainly had Matt's number... that is, until I didn't.
And though many folks from my club walked away with a turkey, I was not one of them. It was a one in thirty chance anyway.