Exercises: elbow, footwork, etc

Having had a little time off regular fencing due to holidays and so on, and also because of developing some elbow soreness, I've collected some information on things to practice, including basic footwork and extension stuff, elbow stretches and so on.

I asked about elbow soreness on the Reddit fencing subreddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/Fencing/comments/1tbbev/elbow_soreness/

Suggestions include:

• "ice it after every practice"
• rest, dont overdo it in practice
• beware of hyper-extending your arm
• practice keeping actions small and relaxed, with fewer binds, using a "giving motion" ("here, let me share this with you...") instead of hyper-extending
• maybe try a tennis elbow strap

Also these "therabar" rubber bar exercises:

There are other therabar exercises but I haven't gotten to them yet.

On practicing footwork and extension basics, these videos are good:










And here is a long video with many exercises. Specific exercises begin at 14:20 and get increasing difficult, far beyond what my old body can hope to do.

RCFC Thursday Night D & Under Epee

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=24056&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=96496

Well, oddly mixed pool results. I lost to John Comes off the bat, and also lost to Xiao Long Phillips, who it seemed like I should have been able to beat. But I beat Kyle Margolies 5-1 and Luke LaRocque 5-2. People were impressed with my winning against Luke, who went on to win the whole tournament. I had fenced him in a DE once before I kind of knew what to expect. My notes told me to be patient and wait for openings, and to play with distance, which is what I did. Once I was up a couple points it was easy to be patient and wait for him. Since there were only 18 fencers it was only a D1 event, and since the top four fencers already had Ds no one earned any rating tonight.

In the DEs I was slotted with Kyle Margolies, who I seem to have been fencing a lot lately. After fencing a DE with him in the last tournament and in this one's pool I thought I had a decent chance. And I was in the lead most of the time too. But in the end he made some good touches and I made some bad moves and he won 15-12. In particular: two or three too many times I made straight in attacks and ended up over-extended and awkwardly off-balance, forced into a kind of prime, half-turned position. He easily scored in those cases. He also made a nice touch to my hand near the end.

This isn't the first time I've been ahead for most of a DE and lost in the last few points. Perhaps I ought to ramp up the energy toward the end of DEs.

An unpleasant thing: Lately after fencing my elbow has been sore, seemingly more and more each time. It was quite sore after fencing the DE with Kyle tonight. It seems worse when I use the Dragonetti grip, which I did in my first pool bout with John Comes. I switched to a regular Visconti grip after that, but man it is a bit painful now as I type this. Maybe I should take a week or two off fencing and see if it improves.

D & Under Mixed Epee at SAS

http://askfred.net/Results/roundResults.php?seq=1&event_id=97559&highlight_competitor_id=91067

Did fine in the pools, won 3 lost 3. Went to 4-4 against Craig Haworth and won, which felt good—I lost to him in the finals of a U tournament, and then twice more at another tournament. I was waiting for my chance for revenge!...in a friendly-like way, of course.

Pool results:

But, having done okay in the pools I went and lost my first DE, against Kyle Margolies—and pretty badly too, 15-9. Kyle and I had fenced a DE once before, at a RCFC tournament. That time we got to 14-14 and I had scored the final point. When he saw he had to fence me he said something like "oh no!" Of course I was thinking something similar.

I went into my bout with Kyle with a decent plan, having a good chunk of notes about him I had written down when we last fenced. My notes told me to fence with patience, play with distance, pacing, and broken rhythms. To try using second intentions and beware of flicks, foot attacks, and his ability to "escape parries and takes". I planned to fence with these things in mind, and to try to use my recent practice of pushing distance to draw attacks, then hopping back and re-attacking. But my fencing was just not up to doing what I was intending. Russ, who was the director, pointed out afterward that I was fencing "stiffly", which I agreed with, and that I was getting too close. I said I had been trying to push him with distance, and Russ replied sure, but if you do that you need to keep your hand and arm back, which...yea.

In hindsight I think part of my trouble (other than Kyle fencing well) was the very long wait I had between pools and DEs. There were four pools and the one I was in finished long before the others. There was about an hour wait between my last pool bout and my DE with Kyle. His pool, on the other hand, was one of the last to finish. I didn't quite realize it until we started fencing, but that long wait brought my energy level way down and I felt like I was fencing slowly and, as Russ said, stiffly. So, a lesson: if there's a wait that long in a tournament do something to get warmed up again, physically and mentally.

Also, I went into the DE thinking so much about using broken rhythm, pacing, distance, second intention, and so on, I ended up forgetting some important basic things, like keeping blade motions small, using fingers, decent footwork, and such stuff. Afterward Kyle told me not only could he tell I kept trying to take his blade (which I was doing more out of habit than because it was a good idea), but that as the bout went on my motions got larger and larger, making it easier and easier for him. Most of all though, I think I was "cold", physically and mentally, by the time we started, and wasn't able to apply my "plan" nearly as well as I might have if I had done something to get back in the zone.

Whoever won that first DE would have to fence TK Goldenbaum, a fencer I hadn't heard of before but who had seeded 3rd and was from Portland. Going on just those two facts I thought it would be unlikely I would be able to beat him—and had I won against Kyle I still would have had to have won against TK in order to earn an E rating. So even before I started against Kyle I had more or less put the thought of an E out of mind. But I shouldn't read too much into pool results (or being from Portland!). Kyle beat TK 15-3. TK kept fleching from out of distance, and Kyle repeatedly caught him in 6 parries, scoring over and over the same way. I think TK's pool might have been easier than the others, although he did beat both Carlo Malaguzzi and Mark Blom—although in both cases 5-4, so.

Kyle was a U and, having won against TK, earned his E. His third DE was against Adam Chase. If Kyle won that bout he would earn a D rating. It was a dramatic bout to watch. Adam is a pretty aggressive fencer but Kyle did very well with parry-ripostes, binds, and counterattacks, like my notes about him suggested he might. Kyle had a decent lead a few times but in the end it wound up 14-14, and Adam scored the final touch and won. Then Adam had to fence Andrew Lee, who was doing quite well. Andrew had beaten Rick Zehr 15-1, then Mark Blom 15-13, then Steven Benack, 15-9 (Steven was the 2nd seed). He fenced Adam on the raised strip as it was the semifinals by then. Andrew, who is only 14 (Adam isn't much older than that himself), has improved a lot since I first fenced him last year. He has a fairly calm, defensive style with good, controlled technique. He is good with his parries and ripostes, but also has a nice fleche to balance his defense, and is pretty fast on his feet in general, in a way similar to his father, Tobias. This was just the kind of style to use against Adam, who is strong and "well rounded" as a fencer, but can tend to drive a little too hard, sometimes over-committing and sometimes getting frustrated, which rarely helps one's fencing. Anyway, Andrew won fairly handily, 15-9. However, by getting 3rd place Adam earned his D.

I took and edited some videos, and added slow-motion for some of the touches. They are in HD and worth enlarging. Even so the quality is not great. Also my camera only has so much memory, so these are fairly short videos showing only a few touches each (and sometimes not the best touches either, but hey)

A brief bit of Adam Chase and Kyle Margolies:



Andrew Lee and Adam Chase:



In the other half of the DE tree Cameron Brown was the 1st place seed. He was in my pool so I got to fence him and watch him. He was quite good, with a wide range of tactics, lots of ducks, feints, foot attacks, flicks, and such. He was also very confident. From time to time he made mistakes, and often used very large motions which made it easier to take advantage of mistakes. I managed 3 points to his 5 in the pools. Still, he's young, strong, very fast, and has a large bag of tricks. In the end he fenced Andrew Lee for first place and won 15-10 (which was Andrew 5th DE bout (Cameron had a bye so only had 4 DE bouts)—me, I've almost never had more than 2 DEs). I didn't see all of his bouts, but it appears none were particularly close. He beat Brook Stehler 15-5, then Craig Haworth 15-10 in an exciting bout. Then Cameron fenced Royal Elder, who had just beaten Carlo Malaguzzi 15-14. Cameron and Royal fenced on the raised strip and Cameron won 15-10.

Craig Haworth and Cameron Brown:



Carlo Malaguzzi and Royal Elder:



Andrew Lee and Cameron Brown:


All in all it was an enjoyable tournament. There were 28 fencers, making it a C1 event. Oddly there were only a few from SAS. There were a good number of local people I'm increasingly familar with, from RCFC, WFA, and MTFC, like Craig, John Comes (Matthew Comes is a C so couldn't compete, but was there giving advice to his WFA clubmates), Carlo, Kyle, Mark Blom, Steven Benack, and of course Andrew Lee, whose parents were there too. Then there was a bunch of people I wasn't as familar with, some local but a good number from Portland, some from Bellingham, and some from Idaho ("Vandal Swordplay" club, in Moscow, Idaho). In all it was an interesting crowd. And although I did only so-so, well, I had fun and hey, I beat Craig finally.

I think there will only be one more tournament for me before 2013 is over—another D and under epee event, at RCFC in a week and a half. So far only 11 people have signed up, so it may be one of those "just for fun" events, unless I win outright of course.

Damien Lehfeldt's Epee Action Map

Came across this interesting flow chart.

source: http://thefencingcoach.com/2013/01/30/lehfeldt-epee-action-map-version-1-0/

RCFC Thursday Night Vet Epee

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=23853&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=95867

Mixed results for me. Poor pools, decent DEs. It was a small tournament—only 12 fencers turned up. Fifteen had preregistered, which would have made it a C1 event, or at least a D1. In a C1 event the winner gets a C rating, 2nd-4th places get a D, and 5th-8th get an E. In other words, if fifteen people had showed up more than half would have won a rating (although most would have already had one, but I might have gotten one). But Monica Exum, Aaron Page, and someone else did not make it, so it was an E1 event, meaning only one rating, an E, is awarded, and you have to come in 1st place to get it. Most of the fencers already had at least an E rating, so, as John Comes put it, "we're fencing for fun tonight". I replied, "hey, I could get an E!" I was mostly joking, of course, but still, of course I aim to come in 1st place! John agreed and over the evening urged me to get that E, although it was no surprise that I didn't. We did "fence for fun", as the winner of that 1st place E was Johannes Klein, who is a C, so.

I did poorly in the pools, winning only one bout out of five. Robert Lampson and I went to 4-4, and I got 3 points against Wulf Carson (who I don't remember having seen fence before, but Johannes knew him and he came in 2nd place). Against Jim Henderson and Mark Blom I only managed to score 2 points to their 5. Losing to Mark Blom wasn't surprising, but I thought I would do better against Jim Henderson. We had warmed up together and I had done well then. But then warming up is not bouting, so.

My pools results:

My scribbled notes after the pools:

• Jim H's fleches tricked me & I retreated; should have ducked or counterfleched.
• Robert Lampson; 4-4, argh, his long reach.
• Blom; yeah.
• Wulf; I was just spacey (but he beat Toby in DEs, huh).

I was rather annoyed after the pools, but managed to avoid feeling defeatist, instead channeling energy into something between anger and drive. In the DEs, which began with the round of 16 since there were only 12 of us (the top 4 got byes), I was paired with John Comes. The last few times we've fenced I've done well, so I gained some confidence. I gained an early lead, then he caught up a bit, then I pulled ahead again to 9-6, winning with a double touch, 10-7 (it was a vet event, so the DEs were only to ten points). Like in our other recent bouts I was able to score on his fleches pretty well, either by seeing them coming and attacking into them, or by catching him in a good parry and scoring with a riposte. I also had success with my sometimes-risky "advance with an on guard in 4". The goal of that tactic, or one of them anyway, is to draw an attack—being on guard in 4 is basically a giant invitation to attack straight in, or a bit in 6, to the arm—then you catch the attack with a strong 6 parry and riposte straight in. Twice I was able to do basically that with John. A third time I advanced on guard in 4 and John didn't do anything, in fact seemed to hesitate, with his blade in a centered, neutral position. In that situation I was able to simply lunge in 4 (into his 6) and hit his arm. Had he been on guard in more of a normal 6 position I wouldn't have been able to.

Afterward we chatted a little. He said he's often unsure what to do with me—that my style is confusing or unorthodox, or somehow simply something he has trouble with. I told him about the "advance on guard in 4" thing.

So I made it to the table of 8, yay. And who should I get paired with but Tobias Lee. Toby had done well in the pools and was the 1st place seed (I was 8th). So I had to face the "best" fencer, at least according to pool results. However, out of the final 8 fencers if I was allowed to pick which one I had to fence I might have picked Tobias anyway. He's quite good, and other fencers who are better than me, like George and Jer, say they can't deal with Toby and don't know what to do with him. But for whatever reason I have always felt fairly confident with him. I don't think I've ever beaten him, but I almost did last week in a pool bout, and in general I feel like I know what I should do with him, and what I need to be careful about. In other words, I feel like I know how to beat him, if only I was a little bit better—a little bit quicker to see when things get dangerous with him and react accordingly before getting hit, a little bit more able to focus on and react quickly to the subtle changes of things like distance that I know he relies on. A little bit less likely to make mistakes I know I should avoid but sometimes do anyway.

This is my "look on the bright" side takeaway from this tournament: Although I did fairly poorly in the pools and lost to Tobias, I could see where I made mistakes, I could see how I could have done better. This is an improvement over losing without much of a clue as to what happened and how I might have done better. The most obvious thing I could see was a less than perfect focus. I was trying hard to be as focused as I could, yet I still had moments where my focus flagged, and that was when I tended to get hit—sometimes because I didn't notice distance issues fast enough, sometimes because I reacted instinctively in non-ideal ways—such as trying to retreat when being fleched instead of ducking, or counter-fleching, like I kept telling myself to remember to do! Focus and distance...and sometimes I made semi-impulsive, ill-advised attacks. I could have been better with changing rhythms and tempos too. I had planned to use a lot of changes in tempo and broken rhythm. But in the midst of things I tended to revert a bit too much to an "autopilot" rhythm, which probably became predictable and static. All this goes back to focus and energy. I could excuse myself by saying I didn't get enough sleep last night and was more prone to spaciness than I might have been. And that's probably true to some degree. But another aspect is simply the long, slow process of getting better at fencing. The optimist in me wants to think I've reached the level where I can see my mistakes, and that although that can be a rather frustrating it is probably a normal and good phase of "getting better".

Anyway, my DE bout with Tobias. I went in feeling confident that I could win. Although I thought it unlikely I sure was going to give it my all. Toby is fun to fence anyway, so I figured it would be enjoyable no matter what happened. John Comes gave me a bunch of advice beforehand—mostly things I already knew, but it was good to hear it from his perspective. Mainly stuff about how Toby tends to withdraw his hand, which has the effect of making distance seem wider than it is. Also, John stressed keeping my point near Toby's guard and hand—to always have my point in the place where he wants to extend, thus either thwarting him or getting him to put his hand on my tip. That wasn't something I had thought about too much with Toby—mostly I focus on trying to take his blade in unexpected (for him) ways, like 7-6 binds, or using strong beats coupled with disengages, feints, and second intentions; and also I try to focus on protecting my hand and forearm from his excellent picks. John's advice was good in at least one case when I feint-threatened Toby's hand from below, with my hand pronated (something I tried to do enough to set up a "pattern"), then suddenly rotated my wrist into supinated position, turning my low line into a high line and extending to his elbow. That one felt sweet, precise and, I don't know, "Russ-approved" (ie, wrist-rotation rather than big arm movements). Toby said it was nicely done. I also managed a few decent blade-taking hits, usually a 7-6 bind type thing, or even, since Toby slips out of binds so well, a kind of 7 envelopment then bind to 6. I tried to set these up by repeatedly beating, sweeping, or at least feinting toward 8. I figure if I can get him (or anyone really) to expect an "8-ward" motion he may try a fast disengage/escape into a 6 line. If I'm fast enough (ie, have the distance and timing just-so) I can reverse direction part way from 8-ward  to 7-ward, catching an "escaped extension into 6" and, if all goes well, either making a 7-type riposte to the leg, or binding the blade up into a 6 opposition. I think I managed this kind of thing once or twice with Toby. Or I should say I think I scored once this way, and used it a couple more times to disrupt and maybe even confuse him for an instant or two. In any case, ever since Russ told me 7 parries/takes/binds are useful precisely because they are not used very often and therefore potentially surprising or confusing, I've been trying them out on various people. On some people they don't work at all, on others, like Toby, they seem to sometimes work. Perhaps this is one of the ways my style is "unorthodox", as I've sometimes been told. But really, 7 parries/takes aren't unorthodox, I would think—it's just that people don't use them much in epee, right? (the septime (7) parry, for those who don't know, is the inside, low-line, supinated one; now you know)

However, where I failed with Tobias (like I said, I was able to see pretty clearly what went wrong) was mainly to do with distance. Maybe I didn't take John's warning as seriously as I should have—that Toby's style of holding his hand back tends to make distance seem wider than it is, allowing Toby to do his very fast, very accurate hand hits. He hit me on the hand or forearm far too many times. Also, I also tried, as I had been the whole night, something I had been watching on a video earlier in the day—doing a beat toward 4 following by a flick to the forearm, which in theory becomes exposed by the beat. It looked great on the video, but I'm not sure I got it to work at all tonight. It certainly didn't work against Toby. He doesn't tend to hold his blade in a way that allows the kind of beat I was aiming for, and his response to a beat seems to usually be an immediately flick/pick back toward the arm that made the beat. In my case, since I was trying to flick after my beat my arm was briefly exposed as I pulled back from the beat to make the flick. So that tactic backfired.

Anyway! Toby took an early lead. I managed to rally a little in the middle, getting to perhaps 7-5 or 8-6 (or both!). But he ended up winning, 10-6. But after winning my first DE against John I didn't mind losing to Toby. He's great fun to fence, and such a nice guy too.

DE table:

The other table of 8 bouts were: Wulf Caron vs. Robert Lampson (Wulf, 10-6), Johannes Klein vs. Dan Berke (Johannes, 10-6), and Mark Blom vs. Jim Henderson (Mark, 10-9, close!). Some people left but about half stayed to watch the last bouts. The semifinals was Tobias Lee vs. Wulf Carson (Wulf won 10-6, exactly reverse of my bout with Toby, it was interesting to watch...Wulf seemed, like me, to take Toby's blade, or at least attack with opposition—but he was better than me at anticipating the proper timing and angles, and at keeping good distance), and Johannes Klein vs. Mark Blom (Johannes won handily, 10-4). That was also an interesting bout since both Johannes and Mark are left-handed and rely to some degree on the advantage that tends to give. Johannes, with his big sweeping beats and strong parries fairly dominated Mark, who had trouble getting an attack through, and had trouble *stopping* Johannes's powerful attacks and fleches. Others have remarked about how Johannes seems to ramp up the his power as a tournament progresses, and this was a good example of that.

The final bout was between Johannes and Wulf. Both are strong, and both are, if I may say, fairly old. They were clearly getting tired. But Johannes tapped into some reserve of energy and by the end had taken control. It was a very close bout though. Johannes was mostly up a point or two, but Wulf tied it a few times. The first period ended tied 7-7. I've forgotten exactly how the final few points went. I think it was tied 8-8 when Johannes made one of his strange, wild-looking, big blade movement fleches. I don't know how he makes those work, because it looks like he swings his epee around hugely, more like a crazed foilists than an epeeist. And yet he manages to hit anyway, while Wulf was left in a kind of half-parry half-counterattack which did nothing. After that fleche Johannes let out a kind of victory whoop mixed with a laugh that ended up sounding like a diabolical cackle. It was funny, and even Johannes realized it sounded funny and laughed at himself. With the score at 9-8, Johannes (perhaps there was one more touch in there after the fleche, I can't remember), and Johannes clearly confident and Wulf not so confident (at one point earlier in the bout, after some failed action, Wulf joked about how he's too old now—I guess when he was younger he routinely beat John Varney and Travis Exum, so I guess he has some history). Anyway, at 9-8 they came on guard and Wulf said something like, "nice job, you won". I don't think Wulf had given up but rather, especially after Johannes's amazing fleche, saw he couldn't prevent a double touch, which, after a bit of action, is exactly what happened. Johannes won, 10-9.

SAS Open Mixed Epee

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=24373

Did depressingly bad. Lost all bouts. Came in 2nd last. Couldn't get into the zone and as I kept losing fell into a defeatist mindset. Managed to start my DE with a better mindset, but lost all the same.

My pool: George Raush, managed 3 points to his 5. Hans Engel, not much hope there, he won the tournament. I got 2 points to his 5. One was a double touch and the other was a questionable call. Hans had fleched, I parried and he missed, and I riposted as he ran by. My riposte turned into a long reaching backward stretch that by chance more than anything else happened to hit him well after he had passed. Toby was the ref (we were "self-reffing"). He thought about it. I was unsure and if pressed probably would have said no. Hans clearly didn't think so either. But Toby gave me the point, saying it was a "long and slow" riposte but it was "one action" and you do get one chance in such a situation. In my mind I was uncertain whether it was really one action. I tried riposting as Hans went by but missed, and my attempt become the "long slow" thing. Was it two actions or one long one? I'm still not sure. It made little difference in any case, as Hans is so much better than me. Garrett Armstrong, a young, small U from RCFC. I watched others beat him and thought I had a good chance, but I lost, 5-2. I was the only person in our pool Garrett beat. Then again, later he went on to beat Jer Gee in the DEs and came in 8th, jumping from a U to a C. Tobias Lee, who I warmed up with and always enjoy fencing. This bout was perhaps the high point of the tournament, when I was up 4-3. But then, even with a 2 point lead and only 1 needed to win, Toby scored twice and won. One of those points was a bad move on my part, when I tried advancing in 4, hoping he'd attack in 6 and I'd close him out, but he simply picked my hand, which was exposed for the 4 guard, damn. On the other hand, one of my hit on him was pretty lucky—after a bit of action he made a rapid retreat, like he does, and I made a long lunge and just barely hit him on the hand. Pretty lucky. Matthew Comes, well, he's just damn good, and will probably become extremely good once he's in his 20s, if he keeps it up. He fleches like a rocket out of nowhere, straight-in from a distance and still surprising. I lost 5-1. The only positive thing was after having watched him score toe touches on everyone else, including Hans, and sometimes more than one toe touch in a 5 point bout, I was determined not to fall prey to it. He made a couple of attempts but I was ready and escaped each time. I wasn't able to score, although I tried to get his shoulder. He's just too fast. He also got me once with one of his crazy over the head, behind the back infighting things. I didn't mean to get that close as I knew he'd do that. Ah well. Mark Blom, who defeated me very quickly the last time we fenced, but this time took longer, and I got 2 points to his 5. At one point Mark went for a toe touch and missed as I withdrew my foot and went for his shoulder. He immediately raised his epee up and hit me perfectly on the wrist before I could reach his shoulder. It was an amazing move. I said something like "wow, very nice", and he said it was a "lucky hit". Lucky or not it certainly looked perfect.

Bad pool meant I got the 2nd lowest seed. I feared my DE would be against one of the super fencers, like Jay, John Varney, Hans, or John McDonald. But it was Carlo Malaguzzi, who in theory I had a chance against. I even had taken notes about him at a previous tournament and formulated a plan. My notes said, basically: "strong, distance! can prep w/ 'tells', attack into. likes to fleche but if caught, blam. patience, wear him out, get him frustrated. impulsive." Well, he was fencing quite well today. If his preparations had "tells" they were hard to see, although I did manage several double touches by attacking into his attacks. I expected him to fleche a lot, but he fleched even more than I expected, and I was usually either just slightly too close or just slightly too slow with my parries and/or counterattacks. I lost 15-8. Not even close.

Normally I am able to avoid feeling too bad when I do poorly, but today had had a bit of a depressing start to it before I even went to the tournament, and getting so thoroughly crushed left me feeling pretty down. I stayed and watched a bit while I cooled off, then changed and left long before the tournament was over—something else I usually don't do. Usually staying and watching helps me get over losing, but I didn't have it in me today and it was getting late and I thought I ought to go home and help with the kids and such.

I saw the very end of Charlie's bout with Toby Lee. It was 14-13, Toby, when I came by, then Charlie scored making it 14-14, and scored again, winning. He was quite pleased. Unfortunately he had to face John Varney next. I didn't see that bout but the results show Varney winning 15-14. So close. Perhaps the main result for my club friends was George. He started his DEs beating Chris Winters 15-10, then Mark Blom 13-7. Then he had to face Jay Slater and lost 15-9. However, by winning two DEs he got into the final 8 and thus earned his C, jumping straight from his E rating. He and Charlie and Russ apparently went out to celebrate afterward. I kinda wish I had stuck around and gone with them—it would have done a lot to improve my mood, no doubt. Perhaps next time I feel like I ought to go home to help with the kids I'll call and see if I really have to. Apparently I didn't really have to today.

So, ah well, another crushing defeat. It mostly makes me want to try all the harder. There's a vet event this Thursday, so the next one is already lined up.

MTFC E & Under Epee

MTFC E & Under Epee, Nov 10, 2013. This was my 14th 15th tournament [edit: Ask Fred isn't showing my tournaments correctly, weird].
[edit: The results have been posted on Ask Fred; fixing a few mistakes; link: http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=24003&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=96313 ]

Vinti blade, nice and black! My first FIE maraging steel blade. Feels great—almost springy, hard to explain.

There were just enough fencers to make it a D1 event. In the final count I think it was 15 fencers, 5 Es (needs to be 15 and 4 to be a D1). We had three pools of five fencers. My pool was me, Robert Lampson, Gregory Hopper, Donald Lake, and John Comes. I had five epees, all of which had passed the shim and weigh test when I checked them last Wednesday. The newest epee addition is a lovely Vinti FIE blade I had gotten a few weeks ago. Also, I figured out I could fit the epees in a camping chair bag, making it a lot easier to carry them. I still don't have a proper fencing bag.

My first pool bout was against Robert Lampson. I hooked up and brought the Vinti blade epee up for inspection. The ref was Craig Haworth, of all people. That was cool. A couple weeks earlier he had earned his E in foil, so now he's rated in all three weapons (having earned his epee E by beating me, naturally). Anyway, he tested my epee and to my surprise it failed the weight test. Failed the weight test?? I'd never had that happen before, or even seen it happen. And I had just tested it a few days earlier, argh! So I got a yellow card for that and went to get my next favorite epee—the other one with a Dragonetti grip. Craig tested it—and it was completely dead. What?? Getting ridiculous here! Okay, fine, I have three more epees, I'll get another. The second weapon failure turned the yellow card into a red card and thus one point against me. Robert Lampson started a point up before we even began fencing. So I got out one of my epees with a regular Visconti grip. That one passed the tests and the bout began at 0-1.

We fenced for a minute or so, with Robert scoring once or twice. At some point I made a hard beat-parry and, get this, my blade broke! Craig didn't notice at first and I moved back and held my hand up. "Um, half my epee is gone..." Really, about half the blade had snapped off and apparently went flying across the room. Gregory found it and I went to get a *fourth* epee. At least that one passed the tests and you don't get carded for having an epee break. But my focus was a little off, shall we say, for a while. I lost to Robert, 3-5 I think 2-5.

That really put the butter on the spinach.

Next I fenced Gregory Hopper. We had fenced twice before—once in a pool and once in a DE bout, and I had won both times (although the pool bout ended 5-4). Well, not this time. It ended 2-5, or maybe 3-5 (the results are still not online, I think MTFC is having computer trouble today—I'll add a link when there is one). I could blame the loss on my epee troubles making me distracted, or that the epee I ended up using was not canted enough and throwing my aim off, but actually Gregory fenced quite well. He's clearly been practicing! Still, even he said, afterward, that I had 2 or 3 times almost hit but simply missed. It's possibly he was fencing well and my aim was off. Also, I am pretty sure I made a foot hit, but Craig called it as a floor hit (we weren't on a grounded strip). My tip was on the floor, but I thought I had slid it to Gregory's foot. Hard to say for sure though.

Next up was Donald Lake. I've fenced him a number of times; I think I've always won. And, I don't know, maybe over time I've been getting better. It seemed fairly easy to work the distance and score with straight shots to his shoulder. He got a couple points, but I won, 5-2 I think 5-3.

My final pool bout was against John Comes, who I've also fenced a number of times, sometimes winning sometimes losing. I particularly remember losing a DE bout to him at RCFC. At the start of the pool I had figured he would be the hardest fencer, but he seemed to be having a bit of an off day (although in the DEs he did much better and came in 2nd place overall). Our pool bout was similar to the one we had at the Subway Games at RCFC last August: I found myself able to catch his attacks and score with strong parries and blade takes. In this case I actually shut him out, winning 5-0. That made up for the rough start to the pools!

During the time between the pools and the DEs I fixed my Vinti epee, the one that had failed the weight test. At first I thought I'd just try taking the tip apart and putting it back together, but then figured I could replace the tip with the one from the blade that had broken. Craig let me test it with his weight, and then helped me test it on a strip. It worked! When I mentioned it to Amber, and how I had never failed a weight test before, she said usually it means the big spring is just worn out. It shouldn't have been, since the blade and tip is only a few weeks old, but whatever. I fixed it and it worked great for the rest of the tournament.

Yea, it's, like, black. A black blade, just like Elric's.

My first DE was against Amber Race. As when we've fenced at SAS I tended to push her back to the end of the strip. But after I got a few points up I began to wait her out more and she was reluctant to attack. When she did attack I was usually able to counterattack or parry-riposte and score. The ref was George Peebles. Near the end of the first period, after a point was scored, I glanced at the time remaining. It was about 20 seconds. I pushed Amber back to her end of the strip and waited for an opening or for time to run out. But time kept passing, more than 20 seconds, and George didn't call time. I couldn't see the machine from where I was so I just kept on. Eventually there was some action and an obvious point scored, but the machine didn't register. The machine showed about 30 seconds. I assumed time had run out and that was the rest period time showing. I said as much to George but he didn't believe me and had us continue fencing. No points were scored before time ran out. Then George was confused when the machine showed 3 minutes instead of 1 for the rest period. He fiddled with it a bit before admitting I had probably been right in the first place. After a minute we were ready to start the second period but after George's fiddling the machine showed a score of 0-0. I asked what the score was and George seemed to not know. As he worked to reset the machine I said I thought it was 7-5. Amber sportingly said no, it was 8-5. George agreed after thinking about it.

With a three point lead I played things safe and slowly built a larger lead. As the second period wound down the score got to something like 14-10. When there was less than 30 seconds in the period I simply held back, waiting for Amber to come to me, but she also stayed back. When the time got to about 10 seconds George called non-combativity, to my surprise. So instead of letting the period end he moved us straight into the third period. Okay, whatever. It was over soon enough, 15-10 or 15-11 15-8.

Because I had only done mediocre in the pools my second DE bout was against the 1st place seed, a kid I hadn't met before named Luke LaRocque. When I saw I was to fence the top seed, who had won all his pool bouts with an indicator of +15, I quailed a little. But talking to Amber, who had been in his pool, well, she said he had done so well because he was in "the easy pool" and that I shouldn't worry too much. She also described his style as being flashy and big, but somewhat wild and uncontrolled—that his height (about 6'2" or 3") had been an advantage in his pool ("made up mostly of short women", she said), but shouldn't be a major concern for me (I'm 6'0"). She suggested I watch for openings in his overly "big" style. And that's pretty much what I did.

Luke's style was "big", active and attack-focused, but also, just like she said, rather wild. Some of the wildness was deliberate—he was, as the kids at RCFC might say, of the Varney school of fencing (meaning John Varney's son)—seeking to confuse or throw people off by being somewhat "unorthodox". But some of his wildness was simply overreacting or using overly large motions. I found I was able to do well by keeping good distance and using a variety of feints, second intentions, and generally setting up patterns in order to draw out certain attacks, or breaking the patterns when the timing was just so. I used a lot of slow "sweeping 4" type motions, mostly with the aim of either drawing an attack in 6 which I could stop with a strong parry 6 or, if he came close, parry prime, or attacking low in a 4-5 cross kind of way. I never did a real 4-5 cross but I did score at least once with the low flicky motion of the cross while his blade went over my half duck. In a couple other cases I scored with a prime or "prime-ish" parry-riposte. That always feels nice.

For most of the bout I was up a point or two. Two or three times he tied it up. A couple times he pulled a point or two ahead but I managed to regain a lead again. It went rather quickly. Luke rarely waited long before attacking. I was up 10-9. But near the end of the 1st period I made a couple of mistakes and he got a couple good hits, including a nice fast flick that surprised me. I made an ill-advised, badly planned attack that failed (he scored). The period ended with Luke up, 12-10. Charlie gave me a pep talk and was cheering me on, which was nice. In the second period I knew I had to score a good number of single lights. I continued to work on distance and timing—and also tried to "break up his preparations", as Charlie suggested. After a feint he made an overly large charge and I was able to score with a nice counterattack. 12-11! But then, alas, a series of touches that were close but his, 13-11, 14-11. I got one more point in there, but it ended 15-12. I'm not sure exactly how those last touches went. Perhaps I wasn't keeping distance as well, in my desire to make single light points. Maybe trying to break up his preparations made me get a little too close. Maybe I was thinking too much about single lights and looking for openings. Maybe at the end he reined in his wildness and simply didn't make the kind of mistakes I was looking for. Maybe a little of all of those things.

In any case, thus went another almost-E rating. Had I won that bout I would have gotten that E. So it goes. A good tournament nonetheless. Although I lost to Luke I mostly felt in control of the bout, and it was a very exciting, fast-paced bout. It felt good to be able to face someone I had never fenced, or even watched before, and be able to assess things with a decently calm clarity of mind, while working hard physically. It was especially nice to be able to see aspects of his fencing I could take advantage of, devise plans to do so, and actually carry them out fairly well. There was one parry prime riposte I made that felt especially well done.

And there's always next time, and the time after that. In just a week there is an open mixed epee event at SAS. Currently there are 19 fencers signed up, and it would be an A1 event. I don't hope to win or anything, but I plan to do well, damnit! Plus, looks like lots of people I like fencing: Toby and Andrew Lee, Chris Winters, Russ, Carlo Malaguzzi, Gregory Hopper, John and Mathew Comes, Jim Henderson, Joel, and even Luke LaRocque. Perhaps I can avenge myself.

Almost an E again

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=24372&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=97551

This was a fun tournament and I did well, but I admit it took a few hours to get over feeling "argh" about coming within 2 points of earning that silly E rating. My DE bout with Adam Chase was mostly tied or with me a point or two ahead, until the end when he pulled a point, then two ahead. And although he's certainly a challenge his style works well for me. That is, he tends to do things that I usually try to get people to do—things conducive to my blade taking tactics. But now that a bunch of hours have passed I'm over that and more enjoying having had a good day fencing. I'd write more but am tired. Started taking notes on individual fencers in a little notebook. Perhaps that will come in handy in the future.

2013 Leon Auriol Open

Well, this was a rough way to start the fencing season. Last year I was able to ease into things with a "U" tournament and the BladeFest vet event before being crushed in the Leon Auriol Open. This year, well, things start right off with being crushed.

During the event I was able to relax and enjoy it, despite being crushed. And I definitely enjoyed and learned from watching and fencing people I don't usually fence. But now, the day after, I feel rather crushed. On the plus side, I went in about as prepared as I could be, kept my mind focused pretty well, and fenced about as well as I can expect of myself in a tournament, especially one that I had to get up at 7:00 AM for.

In tournaments my mind often goes a little blank and my fencing reverts to simpler, uncreative moves. Part of that is because my brain gets hung up on the idea that tournaments "count", which generates an edge of worry. But, during this one, I think I did better than usual avoiding this mind-problem. Beforehand I had worked out a few key things to remind myself with, and even wrote them down and reminded myself during the tournament a few times. They were part tactical, part mindset oriented, and partly inspired from the Leon Paul book "Epée Fencing, A Step-by-Step Guide...", which used the term "mantras" and has a number of useful ideas about mental (and physical) preparation for, and use in tournaments. So my "mantras" were:

• Use the whole strip. A tactical mantra reminding me to use good footwork and lots of forward and backward movement, to play with distance a lot, especially taking time now and then to open distance up quite a lot, to give myself space to refocus and perhaps to frustrate opponent. To alternate being a defensive retreating style and an offensive threatening style. Also a reminder to be patient and retreat to my end of the strip sometimes as a tactic to draw over-eager attacks.
• Lower work, upper relax. A basic fencing tenet I still need to consciously remember. Keep your upper body relaxed, especially your weapon arm, shoulder, wrist, hand, and fingers. I tend to stiffen my shoulder, lock my elbow, and tighten my fingers, resulting in many non-ideal things, like overly large movements made with my wrist or arm rather than my fingers, which exposes my hand and arm to hits. When I think about it I can relax my elbow and fingers, but still am learning how to relax my shoulder, for some reason. The companion point is to work your legs hard: they don't get to relax! The Paul Leon book puts it something like "your legs are donkeys, ignore their braying". Work them hard, keep a strong low stance, etc, etc.
• Enjoy, learn. A mental mantra aimed at reducing worry and anxiety. And a reminder—I love fencing and enjoy it immensely in practice, but in tournaments can easily slip out of the simple enjoyment into a counter-productive worry. I almost always enjoy tournaments after they are over, or in between bouts, and am eager for more. I need to enjoy them while they are happening! I've only managed this better in the last few I've done. I managed it this time and truly enjoyed it, even while being crushed. So that's something. "Learn" goes with "enjoy". Since tournaments almost always involve fencing people I don't usually get to fence there is a lot to learn—both about the styles of these regional fencers, who I am likely to fence again in future tournaments, and about styles of fencing, tactics, etc. Both "enjoy" and "learn" serve to take focus away from "winning". You can enjoy and learn even when being crushed, and I did. There is time to feel crushed and even disappointed later.
• Open eyes. Another term I got from the Paul Leon book. I've slightly modified it for my own use. As a mantra it reminds me to focus on the fencing itself, moment-to-moment. To try and see what the other person is doing and, ideally, respond appropriately. Also as a mental thing, it's a Zen-like reminder to devote my entire self to the fencing as it happens.
• Attack into attack. A tactical thing which may or may not be ideal with every fencer or every attack. In part comes from Sam's talk of attacking into fleches, rather than retreating and trying to parry-riposte as I tend to do. Sam says that this approach may result in double touches, and that if he can get a double out of his opponent's attacks, he should be able to win. Of course he's a much better fencer than me, but I've been trying this approach lately. My instinct is still to retreat and parry fleches (and I did a few times in this tournament). Late in the tournament Sam and Justin Meeham were chatting, and I took part a little and learned a lot. This "attack into attack" notion came up and Justin talked about what he called "counter-fleching", saying the best response to a fleche is to fleche back, which is pretty much what Sam had told me a few weeks ago. Sam said it took some time and effort to be able to do that, and that he had to start with just standing ground and extending against a fleche, then lunging into fleches, before really being able to fleche into fleches. In any case, attacking into attacks, or better yet, preparations for attacks, is something I could do a lot more of.
• Back foot solid. Lately people (Russ most of all) have been telling me that I tend to say up on the ball of my back foot, and that this is okay sometimes but not so much for fleches and general balance (at least for me). So I've been working on consciously putting my back foot solidly down at least part of the time, which goes nicely along with keeping my back hip low and keeping my upper body from twisting too much when fleching and such. So, a basic physical mantra for something I've been working on.
• He's better and will win but... The first words of an anti-anxiety mantra that comes from Johan Harmenberg's book Epee 2.0. It may not be useful for everyone, but it certainly is for me. The full form, meant to tell yourself just before any given bout, is something like: "This person is better than me and will win, but I will try as hard as I can to make it as hard for them as possible." In the case of this tournament I was just in, this mantra was particularly useful since I did not win a single bout!

As mantras these phrases stand for larger concepts, and in my mind I joined some of them together (e.g., "Lower work, upper relax; enjoy!"; "attack into attack; back foot solid"). I think I was able to keep these in mind quite well and fenced the way they suggested. So that's good, right? Now, in hindsight, perhaps I should try to come up with another mantra encouraging creativity and insight, if that is possible. As usual in tournaments I had a hard time adjusting to other fencers' styles. I suppose in pool bouts to 5 points there isn't much time to adjust, although one can usually observe poolmates before fencing them and get a sense. The extent of my being able to do that was little more than noting that three fencers in my pool were left-handed and knowing what their letter rankings were. In direct elimination bouts to 15 points there's more time to see and adjust—and more need to do so.

I had trouble doing seeing and adjusting in my one DE bout, against Dylan French, but did get useful advice from John Varney ("stay to the left edge of the strip") and Russ ("attack into his preparations, straight in, nothing fancy"). Of course my DE bout was against the guy who went on to win 1st 2nd place, so perhaps I should be pleased I managed to score 6 points on him? After getting John's advice, early on, about staying to the left edge of the strip I noticed Dylan also kept close to that edge (the right edge for him, left for me). As I watched Dylan in later bouts I noticed he was very good at flicks and remises to the inside. By keeping close to the left edge, like John suggested, I reduced my inside target to some degree. In later bouts I saw other fencers use an opposite tactic, of keeping to the right edge, thus fencing somewhat diagonally on the strip. Whether that helped or not is hard to say, since Dylan did not lose a single lost only one bout in the whole tournament.

Russ's advice of attacking into Dylan's attacks/preparations, and his making a point of using a straight, direct attack, nothing fancy, came too late to be put to much use. Dylan was up something like 10-3 or 12-4 or so. But as usual with Russ's advice, it was very useful, and I scored a couple of points with it.

Anyway, although I'm somewhat embarrassed by my performance this blog is meant to be merely a record for myself. So here's the link to my results yesterday. This is the first tournament in which I did not win a single bout. Even in last year's Leon Auriol Open I won one pool bout, against John Comes.

http://askfred.net/Results/roundResults.php?seq=1&event_id=93534&highlight_competitor_id=91067

Oh, and I took a few pictures (none turned out great) and videos. I haven't gone through them all yet but did experiment with using iMovie to slow the speed down. The quality isn't great, but here's the slow-motion video clips I made last night. I put them on Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pfly/10012990555/ (Jay Slater (right) vs. Dylan French (left))


http://www.flickr.com/photos/pfly/10011987845/  (George Raush (right) vs. Daniel Krogh, I think (left))


http://www.flickr.com/photos/pfly/10011555465/  (Jay Slater (right) vs. Dylan French (left))


http://www.flickr.com/photos/pfly/10011061534/  (Jay Slater (right) vs. Dylan French (left))

Good practice evening, fleche ideas

Had a very fun and "on" evening at fencing practice tonight. Now that it's September more and more people who took the summer off are turning up. I've long had some bad habits with fleching, but Russ showed me a method that I used tonight with a good deal of success:

Half advance or lunge, bring front foot back but keep weight on back foot; if distance and so on is good, fleche. Having weight on back foot seems to help me fleche more *from* the back foot.

Another idea from David (via Leon). From a normal stance swing front foot back so its just in front of the back foot, and with the knee well bent/cocked; from there launch into a fleche off the front foot.

Also, some success using Sam's tactic of doing a slow, not very threatening feint, then another slightly deeper but still slow, to give opponent time to consider what to do if you attack in that line for real, then a very fast feint in the same line but broken off, in order to draw out opponent's planned response--parry? counterattack? etc. Then fleche into that same line with whatever disengage or whatever ought to work against opponent's now-revealed defense.

And here's a fencing video I was watching the other day. It's in German and repeats itself here and there. I'm not sure what it's supposed to be about, other than a bunch of clips of epee practice, some slow motion. All to a techno soundtrack. Ran across it while looking for a video showing a 7-6 bind (septime-sixte). At 30 seconds into this one the student practicing seems to do a couple 7-6 binds. Anyway, I'm not sure why but watching it makes me want to fence.

2013 Subway Washington Games

I never wrote up a report from this tournament? Hmm. Today I was reminded of it because Johannes Klein stopped by SAS to fence and he, by chance, had been my main opponent in the "Subway" tournament back at the end of July.

Subway, the fast food place, hosts a bunch of summer games in the Seattle area, to my surprise. The fencing part of it was at Rain City Fencing Center in Bellevue, and I wouldn't have known it had any connection to the fast food place except for the name and the t-shirts being handed out.

Anyway, several of my fellow SAS fencers were there. It seemed like one of us might end up doing pretty well, but we all ended up losing our first DEs—except John Varney, of course. He came in 5th. But among us lower ranked fencers—me, Jeramy, Charlie, Joel, Jim—it was a little bitter how we all got knocked out so quickly. Maybe that's why I didn't write up a report.

Still. My results: http://askfred.net/Results/roundResults.php?seq=1&event_id=91687&highlight_competitor_id=91067

My pool started off not good, but improved nicely. Clubmates within a pool always fence each other first, so I had to start off fencing John Varney. Yikes. I lost 5-0. Then, well I forget the exact order, but I think I fenced Jim Henderson next. I've beaten him before, and he's beaten me. This time he whooped me, 5-2. Next up was John Comes, who I've also beaten before, and who has beaten me too. Things turned around at this point, and I beat him 5-2. I was able to catch a few of his fleches with good parries and landed ripostes. Felt good, and helped dispelled the doom that had begun to set in. Next, I think, was Dylan Meehan, someone I didn't know and who came in last place in our pool. I don't remember it well, but we got to 4-4 and he scored the final, winning 5-4.

Then I was up against Johannes Klein. I had heard a lot about him—he's been fencing around the Seattle area for a long time. He's older, left-handed, and smart. I had watched him beat George once before, and George almost always beats me. So I went in using a mantra I've been using in recent tournaments: "This guy is better than me and will win, but I will make it as hard for him as I can". People had warned me about his fleches, but he wasn't fleching that day. I played a patient game, focusing on distance, trying to gain just that few extra inches, and made several hits to his hand and forearm. To my surprise I won 5-1. Afterward as I walked off the strip to my SAS mates, who were congratulating me, I said, "well, that went better than expected!"

My final pool bout was against Virgillo Cuenca, another fencer I didn't know. Like with Dylan we got to 4-4, but I scored the final touch, winning 5-4. Or perhaps we got to 4-3 and ended with a double, I can't quite recall. Anyway, after the rough start I was pleased with my pool results. I had won three and lost three, and came in 3rd out of 7. Jeramy and Charlie, in different pools, had also won three and lost three. Jim was 2 and 4. Joel 2 and 3 (smaller pool). John Varney, being in a different league than the rest of us, was 5 and 0, taking 1st place in our pool and getting the 1st seed in the DE round.

I got 16th seed. Almost everyone got a bye in the first DE round. In turned out my first DE would be against, yes, Johannes Klein, who was 17th seed. Well! Given how well I did in the pools it seemed I had a decent chance. Then again, I had seen Johannes fence in other DE rounds and adjust his fencing along the way to 15 points. I figured I probably couldn't depend on doing the same thing the whole time. At first we fenced off and on more or less tied. After the first period I was down a couple points. Varney came over and suggested I try using counter-6-prime—a tactic good against lefties I had recently learned. John said he had used it against Johannes with good effect before. But when I tried it not only did I kind of flub it, but it clearly wouldn't have worked even if I had done it better, and he scored. I tried some fleches—trying to let distance close just enough for a rapid fleche to perhaps score. But they didn't work, and he got another 2 or 3 points. Then I reverted to what I had started with—a cautious game and attempts to score hand hits. I managed to come back pretty well, but in the end still lost, 15-13. Had I played the cautious, hand picking game all along, perhaps I would have won. Or perhaps not. I didn't feel too bad. 15-13 against Johannes seemed a fine thing. And in any case, if I had won I would have had to fence John Varney next, so. On the other hand, if I had beaten Johannes and lost to Varney, I might have ended up earning that elusive E rating.

Other SAS folks: Jim (24th seed) fenced Sam Kaardal (9th), from Nevada I think. He did okay but couldn't quite pull it off, losing 15-11. Jeramy (13th seed) fenced Nate Balazs (20th), and it seemed like Jeramy had an excellence chance, but things just didn't work out and he lost 15-6, which left him rather bummed. Joel went up against Jim Henderson, who was having a good day. Joel lost 15-9. And Charlie (15th seed) fenced John Comes (18th). A fairly evenly match pair. I tried to give Charlie some advice, as I've fenced John quite a few times and I don't think Charlie had before. But Charlie's style is quite different from mine, so I'm not sure if my advice helped much. In the end Charlie lost 15-12. So all of us lesser SAS fencers were knocked out, even though we all had had decent chances to win. Alas!

John Varney (1st seed) handily beat Emma Shafer 15-4, then beat Johannes Klein 15-7. Then, however, he went up against this "dark horse" kid from Texas, Jacob (Jake) Sloan. I had warmed up with Jake (a leftie only just old enough to fence "senior" epee—so like 14 or 15?), and chatted with his mom. They were very nice people. I had done fine against Jake when just warming up, but once he was competing he became quite excellent. I hadn't watched him fence much before he fenced John Varney, and was rather amazed to see him beat John 15-9. Like John, Jake had a fairly calm, defensive style. His distance and parry-ripostes were excellent. John's fleches, which usually devastate me, mostly failed against Jake.

In the final 8 the only fencers I knew of were John Varney and Bela Suveg, and they were both knocked out. In the final 4 is was Jake Sloan vs. Justin Meehan—Justin being a very very large man who had been winning his DEs with large margins: 15-6, 15-7. He was friendly and calm, but clearly very good, and so big. Jake wasn't small, but he wasn't big either. He looked dwarfed fencing Justin. And having just seen Justin defeat Paul Englund, an obviously very good fencer, 15-6, I watched this bout closely. And was amazed to see Jake beat Justin 15-8, with an ease similar to how he had beaten Varney. Wow.

The other final 4 bout was a minor upset. Paul Duchow (3rd seed) lost to Dylan French (7th) 14-13. It was very close. So the final bout was Jake Sloan vs. Dylan French. In most tournaments I've seen the final bout involves the top seeded fencer, or at least fencers who seeded in the top 4 or 5. This time it was unusually in that Dylan was 7th seed and Jake was 8th. I was kind of rooting for this Jake kid. It turned out to be a bit of an anti-climatic bout. Both of them fenced very defensively, to the point of having non-combativity called. Near the end Jake was down on points and time was running out. He clearly was not wanting to attack, but had to. He got a few points with time running down. With 4 seconds left the score was 7-8. Jake needed to attack, but he didn't, and lost 7-8. Ah well.

Hardware

Yesterday I finally got around to tweaking my newer epee with the custom-made grip designed by Dragonetti, which I got from Don. It's taken me a while to get it put together in a way that should work. My first attempt, using blades from my other epees failed because the tangs were all too short. Dragonetti's grip is fairly long—too long for the "XL pistol grip" tangs on my other blades. So I got a blade with a French grip tang and used a hacksaw to cut it down a bit. After a couple hacksawings I managed to get the grip securely screwed onto the tang, although I have to use two lock washers or the nut doesn't quite fit. That done I put the rest of it together only to discover that the socket, in its regular place on the left side, totally got in the way of my hand, and I couldn't hold the grip in a reasonable way. The grip's "end prong" is paddle-like and "canted" quite a bit to the left, which puts my whole hand more to the left inside the guard. Plus, when I canted the blade I think I canted a little more than I meant to. So I tried putting the socket in different places and eventually found a spot that works and isn't too weird.

I'm used to regular Visconti grips like this:

Visconti grip

Visconti grip in hand, plugged in

I'm used to "regular" Visconti style grips, with finger grooves and that long straight rear prong, or tail (see pics). I have mixed feelings about the long rear prong. Sometimes it feels good resting against my wrist, almost like a rudder that helps me keep the blade straight and the tip on target. Then again, sometimes the long tail is annoying, like when doing a prime parry.

Dragonetti grip

Dragonetti grip

Dragonetti's grip has finger grooves like a Visconti, which I like, but instead of a long straight "tail" it has a short paddle-like tail, which angles away to the left. It feels to me as if the paddle tail wants to rest on your lower palm, unlike the long Visconti tail that reaches to my wrist. This makes things like prime parry feel much better, and it seems like it might be good for flick and "pop" type attacks. I'm not yet sure what I think about the way it—I'm not even sure how to describe it—the way it changes all the angles in your grip. The way your fingers wrap around it, the way it fits into your palm, like your palm "wraps around it" somehow, rather than the "straight up the wrist" feel of the Visconti. It certainly feels weird switching between the two grips. I have only barely fenced with the Dragonetti grip, so I guess time will tell. I can imagine how it might be wonderful once I get the feel of it.

Dragonetti grip, held and plugged in

Dragonetti grip, held and plugged in

In these pictures you can see how it looks when held with a gloved hand and how the paddle tail fits in the palm. And remember that that paddle angles off quite a bit to the left. You can also see how I moved the socket from a 9:00 position, which was smooshing my fingers, to something more like a 10:00 or 10:30 position (where 12:00 would be "on top", over my thumb). It looks a little tight in these pictures, and it is a little tight, but seems like it should be fine.

Dragonetti grip, held and not plugged in

In this picture you can kind of see how long the "shaft" of the grip is—the straight part within the bell guard. The "shaft" must be about a centimeter longer than a normal Visconti. I have rather big hands, as does Dragonetti, so this extra length may be just the thing. Then again, it might be just a little too long, making it less comfortable to hold. I'm still not sure. It can easily be held in an "illegal" way, with the paddle higher and snugger in your palm, and your index finger held straight along the top of the grip, with your thumb on the side and back beyond the one centimeter from the guard allowed by the rules. I've seen people hold pistol grips that way—it gives an extra centimeter or two of reach and, in skilled hands, seems to help with picks and flicks. To me holding it that way feels something like pommelling a French grip, which is not something I have tried much or feel inclined to try much. Plus, if I hold the Dragonetti grip that way my thumb is definitely more than a centimeter from the guard, and therefore illegal. Not that directors in tournaments actually check or enforce that rule. In any case, if after a while I'm not happy with the longer shaft I may cut it down a little.

Epee tips and tip screws

Anyway, in addition to getting the Dragonetti grip epee set up better I also replaced the tip and tip screws in my Visconti epee. A couple weeks ago its tip came out while fencing and I couldn't find it on the floor. I have several spare tips, so I put one that looked less banged up than the others, only to find that I couldn't get one of the tip screws in tight. I probably overtighten tip screws a lot, and worry that I've stripped the threads on some of my tips. Last week I lost two or three more screws from this tip with the possibily stripped threads. Looked through the tips I had (see picture) and found one that seemed not too badly stripped. Then I remembered I had bought some loctite a while ago and put some on the screws before I screws them into the tip, hoping that that will help them stay in.

Epee tip screws are tiny!

Assembled epee tip showing screws destined to fall out

The tip screws are really small, and in my attempt to get just a tiny dab of loctite on just the threads I ended up getting loctite all over everything. I worried a little that the loctite might prevent the tip from depressing at all, or make it sticky. But, hooray, it seemed to work fine today. [later note: this was a bad idea, the loctite made the whole tip stick badly, I had to take them all apart and wash everything in acetone]

Don's ingenious washer

While I was taking pictures of these two epees I thought I would get one showing "Don's washer". This is a useful thing. Normally when putting together an epee you put the wires through the bell guard and socket, then "out" from the base of the grip via a small slot. This system works, but there's a million ways you can accidentally smoosh the wires and cause a short. Don gave me one of his washers and explained how he made them. Basically its a relatively wide washer with a small hole. He cuts a little slot from the hole to the edge, for the wires to run through. He also, somehow, makes the washer's round hole into a square one so it fits on the tang. In the picture above (my Visconti epee) the wires go through the hole in the bell guard, then immediately slot through the washer's groove. I put the pad over that and the socket over the pad, then put the grip on. You could put the socket on with the pad over it too, but I wanted the pad under the socket. Anyway, I've come to really like this washer idea.

My toolkit so far

Key tools (mostly)

Finally, just for fun, here's a couple of pictures of my small but ever-growing toolkit. The second picture shows the main tools out. From left to right: magnet (bottom corner and used to keep the tiny screwdriver tips magnetized); two tiny screwdrivers, neither of which seems quite right for epee tip screws; allen wrench for grips; a little triangular file, mostly for cleaning out blade grooves when rewiring; shim tool for tip testing; needlenose pliers; loctite; superglue (runny, not gel!); a bigger screwdriver for socket wiring; a couple smaller screwdrivers for no particular reason; foreceps, which sometimes come in handy when wiring sockets.

Not shown but very useful: a scouring pad for cleaning rusty blades; a simple epee circuit tester box; and a wrench with a "ring" at one end, for canting blades. Things I'd like to get someday: a small vise and a basic dremel/rotary tool. Oh and some more PVC pipe for scabbards; new hacksaw blades; and a metal pipe (or thick/strong PVC pipe) long enough to hold an epee blade and with secure end caps—to use for cleaning blades of old wire and superglue by putting the blade in the pipe, filling with acetone, sealing, and leaving overnight. I tried that once and it did a great job of getting old superglue off, but the pipe was thin PVC and kind of melted. Oops.

Seatle International Veteran's Cup

Report on today's tournament, Seatle International Veteran's Cup, Men's Epee.

http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=20737&highlight_competitor_id=91067&event_id=85305

During the DEs. I'm just off the left edge here, about to fence the guy in the black headband, Jonathan Jefferies.

I came in 19th out of 34, which is better than I expected given all the great fencers.
My pre-tournament seeding (based on letter ranks and point standings): 30 out of 34(or about 22% from the bottom, if that makes sense).

My seeding after pools, for DE: 18 out of 34 (47% from bottom). Not bad.

In the pools I won 3, lost 3; scored 23 touches, received 24 touches (indicator of -1, and came in 4th place out of 7). This made my DE seed just one above Aaron Page and one below Mark Blom. All three of us won 3 and lost 3 and had indicators of -1. We differed only in touches scored and received (TS/TR): Aaron 22/23, me 23/24, Mark, 24/25. Apparently that is how they determine seeding when victory percentage and indicators are tied. There's some mechanism for dealing with total ties, but it hasn't happened to me yet.

Since I lost my first DE my experience was mainly that of the pools, which I enjoyed a lot and feel like I learned from—fencing mostly people I didn't know (excepting Don, and Michael Chin, who I've only fenced a couple times). Results, in the order I fenced, if I remember right:


Fencer V/D Score Fencer's V/TS/TR/Ind/Pl
Chin, Michael D 3-5 4 26/21 5 2
Penner, Don V 5-3 0 17/30 -13 4
Ameli, Sean D 1-5 6 30/14 16 1
Lipp, Robert D 3-5 4 24/21 3 3
Leonardini, Barry  V 5-2 1 20/27 -7 6
Baldwin, Bob V 5-4 3 24/27 -3 5


Details:
Michael Chin (a "B") is strong and fast, as I knew from before. Usually a foilist, he unfortunately avoided displayed foil habits that are bad in epee. I remember a practice bout with him once where he did a lot of foil-type "mistakes" and I hit him in the arm a lot. Alas, he's learned!

Don I know quite well from practice fencing. He's over 70, very experienced and has taught me a lot. So much I knew how to avoid his tricks and sneak through his defenses. Felt a bit bad about winning though. He's currently a "D", but was once an "A", I think.

Sean Ameli (an "A") is among the best epeeists in the country and one of the very best veteran epeeists. I think his current national standing for veteran epee is #2. He was the top seed going into the tournament, the 3rd seed after the pools, and came in 3rd at the end. He's left-handed and has lots of bouncing speed, and is just all around excellent. Great ability to land arm hits on the outside. Well, I managed *one* point against him. Good enough!

Robert Lipp (an "A"), seeded 10th before the start and 12th after the pools. For some reason I can't recall the details of this bout too well. I did my best, but on at least a couple of occassions my ripostes or remises just barely missed. At one point he launched a fast fleche and I leapt back, retreating so fast I nearly fell down, but managed to land a hit while avoiding his point. That was a nice moment. I was definitely putting my all into it.

Barry Leonardini (a "U") was an interesting, unorthodox fencer. An older guy (over 60 at least, maybe 70 or near it?), his fencing "stance" was "walking around", more or less. He tended to wander back and forth on the strip, often half off the edge and sometimes all the way off. He used a french grip and during my bout with him he switched several times from pommelling and holding it closer to the guard. Whenever I saw him start to pommell I starting using hard beats and he'd soon switch back to a closer grip. At one point I noticed he had rotated the grip so that the wide part of the bell guard was "wrong"—facing up and inside. I figured this was useful for some unorthodox attack, perhaps a very pronated and/or angulated attack? In any case, I won fairly handily, but he was very interesting to fence.

Bob Baldwin (a "D") I fenced last and enjoyed the most. He got the first point or two, then I caught up a bit, then he was up by 2. If I remember right, we were at 2-3, then scored a double, making it 3-4. In a bout to 5 it is quite uncomfortable to find yourself at 3-4. One of my main goals in this tournament was keeping calm, with a relaxed upper body (and hard working legs), avoiding nervousness and making every effort to *enjoy* it all. I also made efforts to be patient, which is harder when you are down in points. All these came together very nicely in this bout. I waited for the right moment—which ended up in somewhat ungraceful close combat, but I managed to land a remise and got a single light hit, making it 4-4. Then the need for calm, relaxed, hard working, patient focus was just as great. After some probing we clashed—a double touch, thrown out because 4-4. Then some more manuevering and presto, I scored a single light with a parry-riposte.

That bout felt great. Not only was I able to keep my cool, but we engaged in all kinds of manuevering and efforts to deceive, set up and break patterns, etc. Unlike with someone like Ameli, I felt I could perceive many of his tactics as they developed, and was able to employ my own, each of us with about equal success.

My first DE bout after the pools was against Jonathan Jefferies, a "B" fencer who I had never met or heard of before. He had seeded 15th, to my 18th, which looked promising. I got some advice from Jeff and Aaron, who had been in his pool. He fleches, they say, pay attention to distance, and give yourself extra. He's good at remises, so avoid direct attacks, Aaron said, try to draw him out with feints and second intentions. Well, I was fairly trounced, losing 4-10. His fleches were good. They were fast but not lightning fast, however he was able to bind up my blade as he fleches in ways I couldn't get out of and still don't quite understand. Ah well, as before I did my best, worked hard, kept calm, avoided nervousness, and enjoyed it.

The rest of the DEs included some exciting bouts. Jim Arrigoni won his first DE against Trip, then went up against Mike Perka—an "A" fencer and one of the best veterans in the region, if not the whole country. Mike would take the lead only to have Jim rally and tie it up, several times. As time was running down Jim was behind 6-7, but got a single light, tying it at 7-7. Time ran out and they went into sudden death. Mike got priority, and after a bit he scored and won. So close! Jim came in 10th overall, earning his "D" rating. Had he beaten Mike he would have come in 7th (assuming he lost the next DE), and earned a "C". Damn he's been getting better and better.

Then there were the DE bouts with Walter Dragonetti, who was 4th seed after the pools. First he fenced Jeff, winning 10-0. Afterward Jeff said "that was totally not fun" and "he was toying with me". Maybe, although watching "Dragon" in further bouts, his style tends to be something like John Varney's—retreating and retreating to his end of the strip, then making a hit. Sometimes that can feel very frustrating. Perhaps that is why some people do it. Anyway, after Jeff, Dragonetti beat Gareth Mason, who I don't know.

Then, in the Final 8 it was Dragonetti vs. Travis Exum (4th and 5th seeds). I *know* Travis is very good and I was very curious to see how he might deal with this "Dragon". Being both generally defensive, they got called for non-combativity and the bout went fairly quickly. I wasn't sure if Travis could beat him, but was surprised when he lost 7-1.

Travis (R) and Dragonetti (L)

After that, Dragonetti went up against another of my clubmates, the awesome Mikol Ryon (who had seeded 1st). This was a semifinal bout and up on the raised strip under the bright lights, with a sizable crowd watching. It was amazing to watch these elite guys. Dragonetti took the lead early on and I don't think Mikol ever managed to catch up. He lost 6-10. At one point they clashed hard and Mikol fell down in a way that looked strange, like he had been hurt. My flash thought of a broke blade passed as I saw both blades looking fine. Turned out his mask had jammed up hard on his chin, making his teeth smash together and chipping a couple. For a minute he stood, pulling bits of tooth out. Marshall asked "are you alright?" Mikol said "not really". Marshall asked if he wanted "ten minutes for medical" or a couple other options I didn't catch. Mikol said no, and after putting some bits of tooth in his pocket (!), said he would continue and put his mask back on. There was applause. I think most people in the club, Mikol's club, were really hoping he'd win, especially after that. There was applause after his hits, but little if any for Dragonetti. Nonetheless, "the dragon" won.

There was a minor upset in the other semifinal. David Jensen (7th seed) beat Sean Ameli (3rd). So the final bout would not be, as Trip had put it, "another Ameli-Dragonetti bout" (I didn't know this was a common occurence!). I kind of wanted to see someone put this dragon down, but thought Ameli was probably more likely to have done it than Jensen—although I knew next to nothing about Jensen. Anyway, as with other Dragonetti bouts, there was non-combativity and things went fast. Jensen did better than I expected, getting to a 4-4 tie before time ran out (veteran DE bouts are to 10 points, but these guys were being *very* cautious). So, sudden death overtime. Priority went to Jensen! Dragonetti used nearly the full minute of overtime before landing a hit and winning, 5-4. Man. "Dragon" indeed.

Mikol (L) and Dragonetti (R)

Folks watching the semis and final bouts. (pictures posted to Facebook by Kundry)