https://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=27049&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=107105#107105
I was about to start this post by saying "I did better than I feared but worse than I hoped", but before I began I looked at the post I wrote for last year's Div II/III qualifying tournament and that's exactly how I began that post. Weird. I guess that's true for a lot of tournaments I've gone to.
I was surprised, looking at last year's post, that my DE was with Kyle Margolies, just like this year. I remember that earlier DE clearly, but had forgotten what tournament it was. Ever since that loss I've been eager for a rematch. I was happy to get it this time, but lost again, and worse than last time, and for reasons fairly similar to last time. But I'll get to that later.
First, apparently I qualified for Div 3 at Nationals. First time I've managed that. I can probably even go, which is exciting. I've never been to even a NAC-level tournament—nothing higher than ROCs. I didn't understand very well how the qualification calculation works. Before the tournament I read on its info page how the "top 25% in each event will qualify", and how a person who has already qualified will not be counted in determining that 25%. An email went out listing the people who had already qualified and it seemed that there was only one for men's epee, Andrew Lee. With 25 fencers signed up and the top 25% qualifying, that seemed to mean only the top six or so would qualify. That seemed like a long shot for me, and after I lost my first DE I knew I would come in no higher than 9th, so I figured I didn't qualify.
I hadn't realized that the calculation is done separately for Div 2 and Div 3, and that people with a C rating can't fence in Div 3 and so aren't counted. Or something like that. In any case, after losing my DE I spend the rest of the tournament watching and assuming I hadn't qualified. After it was over I was looking at the results on one of the TVs and was totally surprised to see my name followed by, in the "qualified for" column, D3ME, VETME. I think I giggled like a little kid and ran around telling anyone who would listen that I had qualified, then felt a little foolish.
I'm a little concerned as I write this because I have no other confirmation of this other than seeing that results screen at RCFC. I tried to find confirmation online but can't. I figure in a few days the info will get to the regional and national USFA offices and put online somewhere. I thought AskFred would show the same info that RCFC had displayed via the FencingTime app, but AskFred doesn't show qualifications, as far as I can tell. Also, I thought the in-club results screen showed me as coming in 12th, but AskFred says 13th. And since it appeared that I only just barely qualified for Div 3 I wonder if maybe a mistake had been made yesterday and corrected before sending the results to AskFred, and I didn't actually qualify. I almost took a picture of the results screen at RCFC, but that seemed a little silly. Now I wish I had! Ah well, I'm sure I'll have a firm answer soon enough.
Anyway, on to the fencing. I really enjoyed this tournament. As always I could have done better, but there were a bunch of good moments. In the pools I beat Andrew Lee and Carlo Malaguzzi, and Shawn Dodge too. Never done that before in a tournament with any of those guys, I don't think. On the other hand I lost to Jeff Johnson despite being tied at 3-3. Lost rather badly to Mark Blom and Charlie Muñoz. Fenced Jameson Lu twice (two sets of pools), the first time losing badly, the second time doing much better, getting to 4-4, but losing the last touch.
Another thing—after having a lot of slow pool starts lately I thought I would benefit from a longer warm-up. I tried to get there an hour early but didn't have quite as much time as planned. Still, I did a fair bit of jogging and footwork warming up, which I think went a long way toward getting me ready. I got in a warm-up bout with Kyle too. After the last tournament I had decided I ought to work harder in warm up bouts, to help get myself into a better place for the first actual bout. So I worked harder with Kyle. I suspect he was taking it a bit easy because I scored quite a lot until the last few, when he seemed to take it up a notch or two.
I also brought music, which a lot of people do but I never have. Ideally I would have more appropriate/useful ear buds or headphones, and my ipod is a thousand years old and the size of a dictionary. AND I wasn't sure I had very much in the way of good music for warming up and getting amped. In the end I listened to just one track, several times—Squarepusher "Journey to Reedham". It really hit the right spot for me. A fast beat with drum-n-bass type twitchy rhythmic weirdness, edgy hard-sync'ed synths, and a simple but very happy, confidence-building theme.
FIRST POOL
Right off the bat I had to fence Shawn Dodge, since he's my clubmate. We had the first bout of the pool. I was a bit worried since my first pool bouts have been off lately and Shawn can be tough. But it seemed like he was a bit off (he got better, but seemed to have that "first pool offness" I was worried I'd have), and I felt much more on than usual. That extra warming up and music was certainly part of it.
He started off with a fleche, pretty quickly. I picked his hand from below as he came in. The day before I spent some time watching videos, especially one I took a while ago of Tristan Krueger and Cole Mallette. I liked the way Tristan kept threatening, and often hitting Cole's hand from below, with fast retreats. I had that kind of thing in my head and tried to do something similar in a number of my bouts this day. I started out with Shawn with this kind of thing in mind, so when he fleched I was quite ready to hit his hand from below. Even so, the fleche came fast and I felt a bit lucky that my hit landed. I wasn't retreating the way Tristan did in that video (I'm not sure I can, at least not with the speed and skill Tristan has, he's miles better than me), and if I had missed his hand Shawn's fleche would have landed, no doubt. Still, it felt like a nice start.
Then we manuevered a little until I tried a beat-fleche and scored. Shawn tends to hold his blade out and use fast disengages and accurate picks, but sometimes it makes beats and binds easier. Usually he recovers from beats and retreats fast enough to at least get a double if not a single. But I got this one. And then, well I'm not entirely sure how the points went, but I think I got the next one too, in a way I don't remember, making it 3-0. Then I managed to put my hand on his point, trying some attack, oops, 3-1. Then we had some weird infighting thing and doubled, I think, 4-2. And then he fleched from a little too far and I caught him in a parry and landed my riposte. So 5-2, a good start for once.
Next up I had Jameson Lu. We've fenced a number of times. I mainly remember a DE we had at SAS a while ago during which I had some insights and after which Russ gave me more ideas. This time I felt like I had a good chance and was confident. But he beat me 5-1, mostly with picks and flicks to my hand or forearm. The one point I got was a counter-beat from an absence of blade position—something Russ has been showing me lately. I hadn't planned to use beats with Jameson, but that one worked. A couple of other times I used beats, despite my plan to not, and they failed, and I got hit. At one point I tried to set up a good chance to use a bind and it worked—I bound him in 8 and it felt quite good in the moment, but then I missed, giving him the opportunity to escape the bind and hit, which he did.
Third bout was with Jeff Johnson. I don't think we had fenced much or at all for a while. I mainly remember fencing him a few times at RCFC open fencing last summer. I knew he had developed quite a lot since then and would probably be a challenge. Then again, I had watched him fence several times in recent tournaments, so I had an idea of what to expect. I thought my "Tristan-like" tactic might be viable. Jeff is a tall leftie french-grip counterattacking kind of fencer. He often holds his hand back pretty far and sometimes high, exposing his lower hand in what I assume is usually an invitation-trap kind of thing. Still, I thought I might be able to hit his hand the way Tristan was hitting Cole's. I just had to be careful about not getting too close and being quick in my retreats.
This plan worked fairly well. I got the first point in exactly this way, hitting his hand from below. I can't remember the next couple of points. I think he got up 3-2 before I got another hand hit like that, making it 3-3. Somewhere in there I remembered he might be vulnerable to hard beats, what with the french grip and all. I started throwing out very hard beats, especially that counter-beat I'd been working on. I seem to be able to counter-beat very hard, yet disguise it fairly well—although it depends a lot on how the other person is holding their blade. My beats threw his blade way out of line and once it seemed I nearly knocked the blade out of his hand altogether. I probably had a couple good chances to score, but I was hesitant. I hadn't been beating with the intention of launching a big attack. I was more just trying it out to see what might happen. Probing for ideas. If there had been a really big opening I planned to go for it. And there probably was a big opening or two, but I hesitated and felt off balance. I was a bit surprised with how well the hard beats worked. After the bout Marshall said I had been leaning way forward with way too much weight on my front foot. In hindsight I realize that my "Tristan-like" plan had played into this. I was trying to sneak in to hit the shallow target and retreat fast, and this got me leaning and reaching too much, when I ought to have kept more balanced and done it with footwork. Part of it was leaning in for the extra reach, and part was having weight on my front foot in order to push back for quick escapes. But with too much weight on my front foot I was not able to take advantage of the openings created by my hard beats. It was a good lesson in balance and footwork though.
Anyway, when the score was 3-3 I suddenly remembered Charlie's leftie flick idea, as something useful against lefties. So I tried it, but in an impatient, impulsive way, without a good setup or escape plan. Also, I haven't practiced it much. In short, it failed and Jeff scored an easy hit. Shawn pointed out after how I got impatient at 3-3. That was probably the worst time to try something risky that I haven't practiced much. It just popped into my head like "oh yea, that's a cool thing to use with lefties", and blam, I impulsively tried it.
Then, at the end, well, Jeff had been doing a lot of little beat or sweep like motions, off and on the whole bout. Even when I used absence of blade he still seemed to be trying to beat my blade, despite being out of reach. For a bit I had my blade out and let him beat it a little, trying to figure out a way to take advantage of this. He seemed to be doing it in a fairly consistent repetitive way and I felt I ought to be able to lull him into a pattern somehow, then break it. The obvious thing was to disengage one of the beats, since he seemed to be doing them in a rather predictable way. But I assumed he wanted me to do a disengage attack because the pattern seemed a little too obvious. So I started working out some kind of second intention thing, where I would offer my blade and let him set up this beat pattern, then disengage and make a feint attack, which would, in theory, draw his real attack, which would fall short because I had only feinted, or would be in a form I could parry, bind, or beat. Yes, this is what fencing is all about, deceptions within deceptions! But when I offered my blade, looking for his beat-pattern, I got a little too close and he simply lunged straight in, hitting me blam on the mask. So much for complicated plans. So he won, 5-3. Ah well, I felt like I learned a lot in that one, not just about Jeff but generally about tactics and footwork, and so on.
Next I had Andrew Lee, who usually (always?) beats me in tournaments. This year he and Toby have come up to SAS a few times for open practice fencing. I think having had some of this more relaxed open fencing, where you feel free to try things you might not in a tournament, and everything is friendly and fun, helped make me feel more relaxed facing Andrew in this tournament. Even so I did not expect to win, although I certainly was going to try my best. It turned out quite interesting. I knew that Andrew is very patient and how dangerous it is to get too close or to over commit. I also knew that I tend toward not being patient enough, being impulsive. So I started out by being as careful and patient as I could, and keeping the distance quite wide. We both manuevered into and out of distance, sometimes throwing out feints and what not. I tried some low risk shallow attacks, including a try for his foot (fell short) but nothing too big. A few times the distance collapsed a bit, especially when I got pushed toward my end of the strip. Keeping the distance wide meant I was giving him the ability to push me back. I tend to get worried when I'm near the strip end and am prone to making bad attacks. I've been working on being more comfortable near the end, in part because other fencers often get a little impulsive and/or start closing distance a little too much or a little recklessly. I hadn't actually planned to make this a tactic in this bout, yet I kept keeping the distance open and retreating a lot. A couple times, when we were starting from our on guard lines I even started with a retreat, like Krystal often does—opening the distance even wider and inviting the other person to come to you.
I'd like to say I was working on this tactic all along on purpose, but really I was mostly afraid of Andrew's fleche and trying to be patient and not do anything rash. In hindsight I think it got him thinking about attacking more than he might otherwise. At one point he fleched from just slightly too far. I couldn't score but I was able to prevent him from scoring. Another time, near my end I think, distance closed and we both made shallow-ish attacks that brought us even closer and quickly became infighting. We both tried prime-like infighting things. Mine hit while his went between my legs as I kinda did the avoidance dance.
Anyway, all this brought us to 2-3, with Andrew up a point and time perhaps about half used. Again I'd like to say I had this plan all along but really it was just something that popped into my head and I acted on. A couple days before I was editting videos from the Ray Coates tournament and had been admiring Matthew Comes's style. Sometimes he fleches right off the line and frequently scores. It seems to be one of his dependable "go to" moves. A few other people have a nice "off the line" fleche too. In editting videos I ended up watching a couple of these fleches of his in slow motion, checking out the way he comes off the line in particular. It's too far to fleche right off the line. People who are good at this take a step or two first. The obvious trick to it is doing that first step or two in a non-threatening way that hides the coming fleche. One way is with a calm walking, with a crossover perhaps. But I think this overly "calm" start might actually alert better fencers, it's too easy to see the calmness as a ruse. I'm still not sure how best to do it, but I'm thinking it ideally ought to look very much like the way you've been starting in the bout up to then.
With Andrew I had mostly been starting with a fairly big step that fell into a bit of bouncing, usually bouncing slowly backwards. At 2-3 for some reason I remembered watching Matthew Comes and thinking about his fleche off the line and decided to try it. So I started with a big step, fell into bouncing, but bounced forward rather than backward then fleched. It worked! In the moment I didn't think about the bigger picture and how my more defensive approach up til then might have set things up nicely for a surprise fleche like this. Who knows, maybe my subconscious is smarter than I am. Anyway, after that I continued being more agressive. I forget exactly how, but we doubled, making it 4-4. And then, we maneuvered a little and doubled, thrown out. Then again, we doubled in pretty much the same way. And then, I think I used an up-beat hoping to hit his wrist from below. He counterattacked, I missed his wrist but continued to the body, and we doubled again, thrown out for the third time.
Three doubles at 4-4 can feel a little funny. What is this, saber? We both laughed a little, I think. Scott was the ref and he had been joking off and on between bouts about how our pool would be done first, but then realizing he had the one larger pool so maybe it wouldn't. Then he had joked about how he wanted to be done first. There was some back and forth joking between bouts about how we should fence faster or something. After Andrew and I doubled three times at 4-4 Scott said something, I forget exactly what, just a little joke, but to the effect of "come on!". That, plus the way we had doubled three times in more or less the same basic way, and how in epee people often break patterns after three of "the same" things—all that made me think Andrew would do something different, something maybe a little impatient. I guessed he might do a quick fleche. I was right! Not only was I thinking he would fleche but he did it from a bit too far. So I was able to counterattack and score a single to win. Whew. What a strangely tactical bout.
My last bout in the first pool was with Colin Skone. I think he is still a bit of a beginner and he hadn't been doing very well so far—except for beating Jameson Lu. I felt pretty confident and it went well. I don't remember the specific details very well. I think it was mostly about working distance and drawing attacks with feints and such. I won 5-1.
So a pretty good first pool. I was three and two, with an indicator of +2. Third place—Andrew and Jeff had both done four and one. Andrew took 1st place because his one loss was 5-4 (with me), while Jeff's was 5-1 (with Andrew).
This tournament had two sets of pools, which is a format I like. But in this case it would have been better for me without the second pool, since I didn't do nearly as well. I seeded 7th out of 21 after this first pool and 12th after the second. But, hmm, looking now, if there hadn't been a second pool I think I would have gotten Charlie for my first DE, so perhaps I was in trouble either way.
SECOND POOL
In this pool I had two bad losses, one very close loss, and one close win. It was a little weird. I knew Charlie would be tough, and he was. I thought I could beat Mark Blom, but I lost badly. I thought Carlo would be a major challenge, but I beat him, to my surprise. And I got a second chance with Jameson Lu, who had beaten me so badly in the first pool. I did much better this time, getting to 4-4, but lost the last point.
First up, Charlie Muñoz, my clubmate. He won, 5-2. He fenced better, to put it simply. One time I had a great chance to hit, but plain missed and he hit. And at the end I attacked too impulsively and he easily hit. One unusual and somewhat annoying bit: I got a lovely hit on his hand from below. I felt like I had set it up nicely and made an accurate, very nice hit. I felt quite pleased. But Scott, who was reffing (by chance he reffed both my pools and my DE), gave me a yellow card an annulled the touch, saying my back foot had gone far to my right, well off strip, before I hit. I'm sure it had—I have a bad habit of sweeping my back foot to the right anyway, and with Charlie being a leftie I was hugging the right side of the strip. AND, the ungrounded strips at RCFC are awfully narrow! Ah well.
I didn't write down much about my next bout with Mark Blom, which I lost 5-2. I was planning to try and use beats like I had with him in Portland a while back. Perhaps he was expecting me to take this approach. I had a couple of good openings that I missed. I think I was tensing my shoulder too much and using my arm and wrist instead of my fingers too much. I made an effort to relax and use my fingers more, but got impatient near the end.
Then I had Carlo Malaguzzi. I don't think I've ever beaten him in a tournament before although we've fenced enough for me to get more and more of a clue what to do, not to do, watch out for, etc. I think I did decently this time, but still not great, making some mistakes and missing some. But he also made some mistakes and missed some. I think he was having an off day. Even so it was close and there was some luck involved.
The first few points are jumbled in my mind. Once I tried a counter-beat attack but went too large and missed. Another time he scored with one of his nice binding fleches. After that I tried to avoid doing things that would let him fleche with a bind. I tried to not give him my blade, used absence and so on. I think this played into my missing a couple more of my attacks. One time he got me on the leg. In this kind of way we got to 3-3. Then he launched an attack that could have, should have scored, but he missed and I scored, 4-3. And then I attacked and I missed, he hit, 4-4. Then he made a nice attack but, yes, missed, just barely. I felt his tip go by my chest. I managed to land a counterattack and won, 5-4. It felt good to finally win against Carlo in a tournament, but that wasn't the best way to do it. Way too many misses on both sides.
Next I had Jameson Lu again. After he destroyed me in the first pool I was ready with a different approach. Charlie, who had beaten him badly, gave me good advice too. In short the basic idea was to be passive and retreat a lot, knowing he will attack a lot. To try and lull him into thinking about his attacks even more than usual, then attacking when he doesn't expect it. Something like that. I was not that passive though. I couldn't help, or thought I ought to use feints and shallow engagements in order to encourage attacks and maybe make openings. I didn't do as well as Charlie, who had won 5-1, but I did better than before, getting 3-4, then 4-4. But he got the last one and won 5-4. One thing Charlie pointed out afterward was how when I did find an opening and fleched I made straight direct fleches, but Jameson is fast and I'd either get a double or lose the point altogether. I ought to have done binding fleches. Also I might have done better by being more passive and patient, waiting and lulling more. Then when he did attack and his blade was out, going for the surprise fleche, with a bind.
Anyway, so in the second pool I was one and four, with an indicator of -6. Not as good as the first pool. In fact, I see now, tied with Carlo for last place. We both won one, scored 13 touches and lost 19. After the first pool I was seeded 7th, but after this one I dropped to 12th. There were 21 fencers altogether and the five who ended up seeded above 16 were cut. So I made the cut, which was my first concern. In last year's qualifying event there were 31 fencers, 24 promoted to DEs, and I seeded 18th. Fairly similar in a way. And in both cases I lost my first DE. But with fewer fencers this time, or maybe fewer D and unders at the top, I managed to squeak into qualifying for Div 3, while last year I didn't.
DIRECT ELIMINATION
I smiled when I saw I would fence Kyle Margolies in the DEs. Just like last year, only this time I thought I knew better how to win. His fencing has changed in various way, but I had gotten the chance to watch him a bit recently, and even warm up with him before this event, so I figured I had some good information. Last year he had taken an early lead but I had crawled back to within a point or two, before he gained in the last few points, winning 15-11. This time, alas, not even that good, I lost 15-9.
My basic plan was to be as fast as I could, getting in and out quickly, drawing attacks and retreating so he fell short. Waiting for mistakes and openings, then attacking fast and strong. Since last year he's switched to using a french grip and, although I was well aware of this, perhaps I let myself get too close a few times. And when I thought I saw an opening and fleched I too often found myself parried—often in prime, and hit. He quickly got a big lead. I tried to fall back a bit and rethink things, but he pressed the attack and scored a bunch more. As time ran out on the first period I got defensive, wanting time to run out so I could regroup. With about ten seconds left he made another big attack and scored again, which got me annoyed at myself. Can't I even just kill a few seconds? At the end of the period it was 12-6. Not good.
Shawn came over and talked with me, saying I seemed to have a hesitation, but more important, he pointed out how Kyle was making a half or full retreat when I attacked, putting him in the perfect position to make a good parry, while I wasn't retreating from his attacks, and so failing to make good parries. I had been trying to retreat! This is something I definitely need to work on more. I know it has been an issue for me for a while and have been trying to work on it in practice. This tournament made it clear how much more work I need to do.
In the second period, despite being down 12-6, I was determined to fight hard. But carefully and patiently. I got the first two points, making it 12-8. Still a long way to come back, but better, and I began to feel more confident. But then he got a single light. I only scored one more point, although I can't remember when or how. Once he had 13 to my 8 or 9 I grew less careful, in part thinking my only hope was something dramatic and different. We got into an infighting situation. I should have run past him, or gotten out, but I tried to score infighting. Instead he scored. At 14 to 8 or 9 I had little hope. I fleched and lost to his counterattack. Sigh.
The funny part was how I assumed my DE loss meant I hadn't made my second goal of qualifying for Div 3. It wasn't until the final results were posted that I saw I had. Just barely, I think. So much just barely that I'm still worried there was a mistake somehow and I didn't actually qualify.
THE REST
I stayed and watched the rest of the DEs. Aaron Page had gotten 1st seed. Jameson Lu had only just barely managed to not get cut, at 16th seed. So they fenced each other, and Jameson won, 15-11. I didn't see it, but heard people talking about it—unusual for the bottom seed to beat the top seed and all. Jameson's fencing got better and better over the course of the event. After Aaron he went on to beat Tobias Lee, 15-10, making it to the semifinals where he faced Kyle Margolies. Kyle had beaten me 15-9, but then had a very close bout with Adam Chase. They went 14-14. Kyle got the last point to win. Then Kyle did the same with Jameson, going 14-14 and getting the last point. Sheesh. Kyle and Andrew Lee fenced in the final bout.
In the table of 16 Charlie fenced Tobias and lost 15-13. It was close and Charlie was annoyed after, feeling that he could have, should have won, but made some mistakes and should have known better. In the final 8 Andrew Lee beat Johannes Klein in a very close bout, 15-14. And Shawn Dodge beat Mark Blom in another very close 15-14 bout. Then Shawn and Andrew fenced, and Andrew won by a very comfortable 15-5. Andrew won the final comfortably as well, 15-10.
Kyle and Jameson both earned their D ratings, and Shawn renewed his to 2015.
I took a video of the final:
