Mind tuning

I fenced in the Norfolk Senior County Championships today, and I came across a very great challenge whilst I was fencing. In the poules, I fenced someone who I know doesn't have very good technique. To my annoyance, he beat me 5-3, due to the fact that he would constantly run forwards, twisting deliberately and lunging low to avoid being hit. What annoyed me was his victory due to bad fencing, not his victory itself. In the DE, I came up against him, and beforehand, I took a few moments to try and work out how to beat him.

It is a strange thing, and perhaps a hard thing, to change a style of fencing instantly. It needs to be gradual, and sometimes forced. For instance, I was told by one of my fencing instructors to keep my elbow tucked in and turn the wrist over more so that the thumb is at '1:30'. I struggled with this for a few weeks, and then tried to change back to my original form of outward elbow, thumb on top. I was amazed to find that I could not remember how I used to do it. So, was it possible to change my entire style to beat this person?

I don't suppose I changed the whole style. More or less, I just changed my form, and my attacks. Rather than my usual arsenal, I tried a more patient approach. I had nine minutes, so why try to end it in one? After the first period, the score was 3-2 to me. After that, we were never more than one point ahead of each other. Eventually, it was 9-8 to him. I desperately wanted to rush in and finish this, but this little niggling thought kept screaming NO NO NO NO NO NO!. So, I tried to keep calm (by the way Dave, C.U.P, calm under pressure is hard, but good). I scored the next two hits, and I knew then that something had changed in my opponent. Rather than his slow and steady movements, he had speeded up, and his non-fencing arm was rigid with tension. Something had possibly twigged in his brain, that he could lose this, and in my opinion, he abandoned what had been working without knowing it. He began to attack me more often having previously scored on the counter-attack. When he shouted at the referee, who had just awarded me the hit for scoring with a blatant parry riposte compared to his fleche, I knew that he was getting wound up. I won the 15-11, and ended up coming joint third overall.

The point of this blog is to show that everyone has what I like to call 'A Punishment Mind'. This is where the fencer gets into the mindset that if they get angry, they will ferociously beat down their opponent in a flurry. This may work for some people, but the calm way is almost always the best. Aggression is better than anger, and in this case, it proves itself.

The Trackless Road

Having seen the behaviour of fencers at competitions, arrogant and modest, fierce, angry and confident, I decided to see what a samurai thought of such behaviours. I personally dislike arrogance, anger and misplaced agression, as they often lead to bad fencing and bad habits for younger fencers. I consulted Yamamoto's book on The Way of the Samurai, and this is what he says:

At the lowest level of skill and ability, one thinks of himself and others as poor. He thinks this because he has mastered only a little. Needless to say, a person at this level is not at all useful. At the middle level , one is still useless, but he can at least understand that he and others have mastered only a little. At a high level, since a person has made something his own, he is proud of his accomplishment. And he is also glad of the praise of others. He grieves over the shortcomings of others. This kind of person is at least useful. At a higher level, one pretens to know nothing, yet others understand that he holds an upper hand. The majority of people cannot get beyond this level. Beyond this higher level, there is one further step: the level of the trackless road. If you travel deeper into the trackless road, infinite secrets will finally appear. Then you can never see the end of your mastery. Then you realise how lacking you are. You only have to go ahead with your intention of mastery in mind You go forward without pride and without humility

I don't need to explain this as it speaks for itself.

Obvious?

Our strangest thoughts usually occur when we are tired, so naturally, before I sleep, I seem to come up with weird ideas and scenarios. However, on Sunday, I came up with a question that seemed really obvious, but actually required deeper thought. The question was simply 'How do I beat people when I fence?'. I can think of how I would answer that, but there is probably an answer for everyone.

I asked someone today how they beat an opponent they had just fenced. The answer was 'I was just faster than them' I don't think that this was true. I think that the opponent just didn't realise that they were not reacting to their speed. There was nothing to do with speed. People claim that fencers are sometimes too fast, or too forceful to beat. If a fencer has reached a certain stage, they should be able to beat any opponent with any traits, in my opinion.

Thinking about this, I came up with a metaphorical scene. Imagine a test that you and someone else are sitting. You both finish the test, and are then given access to the answers, and the other person's answers. The people who claim that the fencers are too fast will look at the test papers and see only their mistakes, and the other person's correct answers. Other people will focus on their correct answers, and see only them, even though their other answers may be wrong. This is what I would do.

I have the answers, and so I would correct my own mistakes at first. Then, having looked at the other person's paper, I could see their mistakes, and I could then make good use of them. In the fencing world, this means exploiting their mistakes until your opponent is mentally and physically drained by your onslaught. Correct your mistakes, and exploit your opponents.

Unexpected

Today, I fenced in the Cambridge County Individual 'MegaFoil' Competition. Recently, with competitions, I have been intending to just score points, and try to fence my best. I frequently see people smacking themselves over the head in exasperation and fury as they loose matches. I want to just fence at a competition and feel completely relaxed.
There were two rounds of poules. I won the first set, loosing only five points, and came second in the second set, loosing one match and two other points. The man I lost to was also in the first poule. I had beaten him 5-2. He then beat me 5-2. The DE's got underway, and I told myself to remain focused and to remain calm. I won the first match, and then the second, and then the third. I hadn't been expecting it, but I was suddenly in the final. I didn't really have time to feel shocked, and I was just trying to remain calm. This became quite hard when I realised my opponent was none other than the man who I had beaten in the first poule, who had then beaten me. He was obviously a favourite to win, seeing as though he had most of the room in his corner. Every time he scored a hit, applause rang in the air, along with shouts of 'Come on!' and other such encouragement. There were only three people from my club backing me. It was fairly discouraging, but it made me all the more determined to score hits off him.

Most of that match passed in a blur. Eventually, I began the final three minutes with the score of 10-10. My opponent promptly scored the first hit, much to the crowd's pleasure. It was then that I made a counter-attack, expecting him to parry it. Instead, I hit him just below the arm. 11-11. I then realised what had happened. My opponent had grown relaxed with the first hit, and he had let his guard slip. This seemed to spark the idea off in me that he was more than beatable. He was just any other fencer. Any fencer can make mistakes. They just need to be exploited. Confidence and adrenaline running, I attacked. After a minute and a half, I had beaten him, 15-11. Afterwards, people asked me what it felt like to have won the competition. To be honest, I didn't feel anything. It was simply a quiet satisfaction of my achievement, and confidence in my abilities. It was a good day, all in all. I felt great then, but I'm exhausted now! That's probably one thing that was expected.

Running on Empty

Despite what the title may seem like, I'm not going to write about the film starring River Phoenix or anything like that. This is going to be about how we feel while we fence. I noticed on Wednesday that we feel different things when fencing a variety of opponents. When I first began fencing, I became nervous around anyone wearing a white jacket or breeches. Since I have now fenced a variety of opponents, I don't really feel anything when I fence people. I feel calm, in a way. I only begin to feel pressured in a competition, in a DE. When I feel pressured, I tend to increase the pace a lot, but this leads to wild parries and bad footwork more often than not. Very rarely, my adrenaline kicks in. I can't really say for sure when this happens. I think that I get energised when I am fencing someone who I subconsciously want to do well against.

We don't always get emotional while we fence. There are also times when we have various states of fatigue. Since my injury, I become tired more often, but I always try to work to the best of my ability. In my opinion, there is tired, fatigued and empty. Tired is when we feel a slight nagging feeling in our muscles, telling us to slow down. Fatigued is when we feel drained, and feel as if we can't go on anymore. Empty is a feeling that I have only had twice in my fencing career. It occurred for the second time on Wednesday. It happens when you bypass tired, and then appear at fatigue. My legs were seriously aching, but I kept telling myself that fatigue is a message, and messages can be ignored. I pressed on, and I hit empty. It was very strange. I couldn't actually feel anything, and I felt as if I could keep on fencing for hours. Nothing seemed to be tiring anymore. Perhaps the strangest thing was that I wasn't thinking. I mean that I was thinking as in: functioning. Whenever my opponent attacked me, I was able to respond very quickly. After the fight, this feeling promptly left, and fatigue set in. Empty is very weird for me, but it is also very good. Maybe this forms the trance-like meditation that Buddhist's and Samurai seek for. If it is, I have only seen a glimpse of it. Or maybe I was just exhausted. Who knows?

Mocks

I have returned from my exams, and I have a few results so far. Some of them are pretty good, and some of them are not as good. I noticed that the subjects that I did well in are the subjects that I actually enjoy doing. If I don't like a subject, I tend to spend less time doing it. This is a direct parallel to my fencing style. I perform moves that I generally like, or that work on certain opponents. If something I do on the piste doesn't work, or if I don't like the feel of it, I often don't do it. Because of this, I feel that I should spend more time attempting to improve my lesser skills, instead of using something that I feel is easy. I shall try this experiment, and see how it goes.

The Last Post (for now)

As we are getting closer to Christmas, I have decided to stay off the air for a while, so this will be my last post for quite a while. Normally this wouldn't be the case, but I've got my mocks coming up, so I'm getting stuck into revision, which leaves little time for blogging, unfortunately. So, I am abandoning my blogging world, and withdrawing into the world of figures and annoying passages of German I have to learn.

So, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everybody!

The mocks finish on 16th January, so watch this space. (figuratively of course)

Also, here's another Poser Picture to look at: