Sectional Championships
Usually I miss this tournament because it is right around the time of my annual Boundary Waters excursion. Since that trip is still a week out yet, I had the opportunity to go to Iowa City to compete even though it wasn't my intention of trying to qualify for the Summer National competition in Atlanta. Iowa City is not that far of a drive and as a result, folks met up at my place to load up a car and drive down.
We got back a usual suspect too. Adam had stopped coming to tournaments with us for a while since he was in the processes of moving out to the east coast. However, events have changed somewhat and we are stuck with the geezer for the foreseeable future. So the three of us set out in a rather pleasant afternoon, stopping briefly outside Des Moines to grab some food and then got to the hotel shortly before ten.
This is when we found out that they didn't have a rollaway bed for us. This is also when we discovered the room was more like a cell. This is about the moment it dawned on me that my weekend might start sucking. Foil and saber we the events going on in the morning and because I wasn't fencing either of them offered to take up residence on the floor for the evening. The way I saw it, it would be good practice for next week... and if I was too sore in the morning that I would just bite the bullet and get a second room the next night.
We got a good start the next day and set out for the venue. It was a nice place, right on the edge of campus of the University of Iowa. While the others fenced, I entertained myself socializing and watching the different bouts over the day. Adam was having a bit of an off day while Chris managed to get 6th in the foil event. A teen from our club, Elward, pulled an upset of sorts in the round of eight and found himself placing 4th overall, earning his C.
Afterwards, we gathered our gear and went back to the hotel for a quick shower and then found a restaurant to eat dinner. I had skipped lunch anyway getting caught up in the events and Adam was starving from the hard day fencing. We then deposited him back at the hotel and then Chris and I went to the section meeting/party being held by the hosts of the event. I kept my head out of the business side of things, deciding instead to socialize with the other folks disinterested in politicking. I also made friends with one of the cats they had who decided my lap was the ideal place to take a load off for a while. Needless to say as the night drew on, I became more and more stuffed up and irritated. Still it was a nice cat.
We finally decided to head back to the hotel around 9:30 and since my back wasn't too stiff from the previous night I naively agreed to take another shift on the floor. I didn't sleep as well as I did the previous night which indicated to me exactly how long my week had been leading up to this point.
The next morning, we got up, got ready and ate breakfast. Then back to venue for the epee event. There were 30 of us and all but four of us were unrated. In fact, the As and Bs alone comprised about half the participants. So I knew I was going to have a hard pool, but as luck would have it, I got the hardest pool.
First off was Hall, your typical tall lanky fencer type. He was probably pretty beatable but I seemed to be in the habit of chasing people down that morning and that will always cause problems when fencing people taller than you. Though I managed to sneak in a touch in preparation somewhere, I really didn't get more than that one touch on him as I chased. 1-5.
Then I got to fence Glass. Glass was an older fencer, tall of course, and slightly rotund. However appearances are often deceiving. Take into account that this guy was on the 1980 Olympic squad and that paints a very different picture of his ability. This was my first crack at the guy and I was very much looking forward to it. This is mostly because he employs a sort of street fighter aggression with a defensive precision that is all to uncommon for that style. Unfortunately, chasing people as I was, this was not the best tactic to employ with him. Again, I managed to sneak in a touch, but it was a double touch at the end and not something I would consider skill on my part. 1-5.
My stellar performance continued with Hardt, the top rated A at the tournament. I had watched him fence in the last few competitions and was pretty familiar with his style. He was a straight shooter, using all of his length as a tall guy to push the distance and then fleche at you. Though I felt like I was moving well, he still controlled the distance of the match and attacked pretty much at will. He blanked me and I can only hope to get another chance at the guy to work on some other ways of addressing his tactics. 0-5
Feeling a trend coming on I had my next bout with Knuston. He fences out of Des Moines and is also a bit of a street fighter. Unlike Glass, he lacks some of the control and experience to truly capitalize on it. This by no means gives me the immediate capacity to dismiss him outright because all it takes is a slight loss of focus for such a fencer to dole out an upset. The upside to fencing the last two opponents I did, it gave me the focus to react a lot quicker than I normally would in this situation. I ended up winning 5-1.
My last bout was against Robinson. I haven't fenced the man before and he seemed to be a bit of a wild card with the other fencers in the pool. He looked like he favored attacking the hand from the outside and then following foward. I took a little time establishing where his attacks ended and then spent the rest of the time developing openings in his game. This took the form of counterattacks after he came at my hand and then drawing his blade down and away from me as he came forward for the remise. Sometimes I would catch him on the hand with the counterattack itself if I got the timing just right. 5-3.
With a record of 2-3 and a relatively poor indicator, I knew that I was going to be fencing my way up the ladder... again. Chris did about as well as I did with a better indicator, but Adam managed to sweep his pool which basically gauranteed him a spot in the top five for the DE seeding. I think I ended up seeded 21st.
As a result, I got to fence LaVoie for my DE bout. LaVoie is a reformed foil fencer, now focusing on epee because he managed to get a higher classification somewhere. I've fenced the lad before but it was probably a year or two ago so I was not sure what tricks he might have picked during that time. It became clear to me quickly that he has not completely shaken of his foilistic style though. He would start with a sort of feint to the flank under my weapon arm and then come over high to either hit me on the shoulder or remise to my arm on his recovery. Though this attack certainly has its merits, if it is the only trick you are using you'll find yourself at a disadvantage once your opponents adjusts to it. I finished adjusting to it somewhere toward the end of the second period. It had taken this long because I kept looking for him to change his attack Instead he kept on with his main strategem and I squeaked out a 15-13 victory.
The thrill of victory came tempered with a mixture of fear and desire. Now that I've clawed my way into the top 16, I was just two bouts shy of earning my B again. The fear was that I had to go through Glass to do it. Let's just say that I didn't give myself very good odds on my desires. However they did get replaced with the notion of fencing with this guy for nine minutes instead of three.
Pool bouts are all about maintaining momentum. You have such a short time, you need to figure out your opponent and adjust to what they are doing in a short period of time. With that margin for error, it doesn't lend itself to much experimentation on the strip. A DE bout allows for opponents to test the waters a bit, try different things hopefully finding a few weaknesses to exploit and maybe learn a thing or two about yourself.
For the first period, I made him work. I kept good distance from his powerful advances and kept patient enough to not blindly chase him down after the initial attack was done. We were tied 3-3 but with the work involved, it felt more like 9-9. I was coached to expect a change from him, something I was all too keenly aware. I did the best I could to address it but his lead ever widened and I found myself becoming more reckless as a result. By the end of the second period, he was ahead 12-3. No doubt that I was grasping at straws at this point and he finished me off quickly in the third period as I tried to find a way to close the gap. It was still a very fun bout and given time, I bet this sort of thing will improve me as a fencer. All the more reason to perhaps attend more of the NAC events next year.
So I ended up somewhere around 15th. For the pools I had and the competitors present, I am pretty happy with the result. Adam ended up placing 6th and Chris fell out roughly the same point that I did.
After we were all eliminated, we slowly gathered our gear, loaded up and started our trek back to Minneapolis. I elected to drive and we decided that we were going to try to get to Des Moines before stopping for some food. During the trip Adam was chiding me about how I never do my little write ups anymore (Hello? What about this one buddy?) or post pictures of the events.
Then he suggested that I could even take it a step further and take pictures of all of the waiters/waitresses we encountered on our journeys because of the breadth of people we get to meet in our travels. Chris and I agreed that the idea was on the creepy side of posting stuff to the internet but Adam eventually pressed the point by asking this one lady who was making us mochas for the drive back.
Her initial reaction was what I expected, that sort of blank uncomfortable shuffle where they are unsure whether or not their answer means simply a bad tip or ending up bound and gagged in the truck of someone's car. After I explained why, she seemed inclined to agree with Adam... though Chris and I remain unconvinced. The internet is anonymity through signal to noise ratio. Public obscurity is all well and good until you decide to boast about all the laws you've broken or until some nutjob decides that you have the just the right eye color to brew into potion to silence the voices in their heads.
Anyway, we got back to the cities around 8:30, which gave me enough time to unpack and relax with a beer, the hockey playoffs (go Roli! er... Go Oilers!) and jamming to a little Guitar Hero.