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.
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