Equipment ready for tourny

Yesterday I rewired two epees at home, but lacking the equipment for doing the final tweaks to the tips and springs I couldn't quite get them tournament ready. So today I went into the club to finish up. Happily, both epees seem to work, somewhat to my surprise—I've only rewired one epee before and was not confident I had done it quite right. I adjusted the tips, which was simple once I realized that lengthening the contact spring was the opposite of what you need to do when the light goes off with the shim in. I seem to be ready, equipment-wise, for tomorrow.

But am I ready physically? Mentally? Well, physically, sure—so far I've never found tournaments more tiring than regular open fencing practice; perhaps because I tend to get eliminated early, but then again, I wasn't particularly tired at the end of the SAS U tournament in which I fenced four or five (or six?) direct elimination bouts. Mentally though... After fixing my epees today I watched a bit of today's tournament—women's epee, men's foil, some saber—and noted how different the mood is from open fencing practice. I've only seen one other major tournament at my club (the Leon Open), and I've only been to other clubs for tournaments. So seeing a big tournament at my club was quite the contrast with the regular mood there. Everyone was focused and trying their best, and everything was more formal, with refs calling out scores and directions, some of them doing it in French. The tables with the equipment testing gear, paperwork, the coaches advising and encouraging, and so on.

After being in a number of tournament this last year—how many? over ten for sure—I still find I have some trouble finding mental focus in the midst of all the tournament stuff. It will help, I think, that this one is at my own club, where I feel at home, and that there will be a bunch of people I know pretty well—both fencing in the tournament and helping run it. Still, how to achieve the proper focus in the middle of all the tournament formality, equipment tests, bout schedules, etc? A while ago I mentioned to Mikol how I had not yet been very tired after a tournament—joking about how I'm usually eliminated early—and he responded "then you're not working hard enough in the pool bouts". Hmm, he's right. Part of that is because during the pools I find it tricky to get focused, or get focused just at the end of each pool bout, as they are only to five points. I often end up starting pool bouts not being sure what to do. Hmmm......