An Exercise in Thankfulness

I fenced a tournament today. I was pretty stiff this morning, not really sure I was at all up to doing anything other than skyving off for one more day watching puppy videos, but I'm going to a NAC this weekend in Pittsburgh, and I really needed the warm-up. I did only so-so in my pools in foil (2-5), but I fenced my first DE well (15-9, or maybe 15-8, I'm not quite sure). I did even worse in my pools in epee--seeded LAST after the pools! And, of course, I lost my DE, even though I did get some good touches in the end (10-15). And now I'm sitting here on the couch with a cat curled up next to me, thinking about how busy I'm going to be for the next couple of days because this weekend I didn't do my grading or class prep or anything other than the reading for my classes this upcoming week.

But--can you believe it?--I'm still glad that I went. Not ecstatically glad. I still hate fencing, and I still want to quit. But sort of soberly glad because, truth to tell, I did fence well today, just not outstandingly so.

I might have lost that first DE in foil; the girl I was fencing had, after all, beaten me in our pool bout. But I pulled ahead at the beginning and then, when she started catching up, I regrouped and actually (mirabile dictu!) listened to the advice that one of my clubmates was giving me. I didn't do exactly what she suggested, but I did give myself the space to find the opening that I needed to get the last touch. So that was a good bout. And I was able to listen to my clubmate again in my second DE and actually make one touch, if only one. My opponent there was an A-rated guy, not someone I typically manage to get very many touches against, even when he is having (if he ever does from my perspective) a bad day (he won the event today). So that was good.

I didn't actually think I was doing that badly in epee; I did, after all, manage to get at least one touch in every bout I fenced in the pools, some of them very sweet. But, as it happened, nobody else in the round managed to lose absolutely every bout (go, me!), so there I was at the end of the pool round, at the bottom. Which, of course, gave me the opportunity to fence one of the top fencers in my first DE (she had seeded 6th). At one point in our bout, the score stood at 3-10, but somehow I managed to get a number of good one-touches against her, making seven touches to her next five. So, I'm learning, right?

Sigh. Double sigh. The amazing thing is--the truly amazing thing is--I'm not really sure why I didn't end up in tears. I could have. I thought about it. I nearly did when I was changing clothes and bumped my ear, still tender even now after the piercing I got in May (not easy to heal when you're dragging a mask on and off every other day, despite the headband I've been wearing to protect it). But I didn't. Someone else did though (come to the dressing room and end up in tears, that is), and although I didn't really know her, I thought, "Here's your chance. Give her a kind word." So I did. And that was good, too.

Now, I have no illusions that this means anything whatsoever about how well I'm going to be able to keep my cool this weekend. But I am thankful that I stayed dry-eyed today, even after losing several bouts that I don't think I should have. One day, one day, I'll be able to fence as well as I know I can. Oh, but I'm quitting, right? Soon, soon. Just not quite yet....

Comments

  1. BodhibadgerNovember 30, 2009 at 7:16 PM

    Bear! I am happy to welcome you to the club for the benthic depths of fencing--the Dead Last club. You are now authorized to proudly carry this poem
    http://badgerosity.blogspot.com/2008/12/dead-last.html
    In your fencing bag as proof of membership. And as a talisman against ever re-qualifying.

    Signed

    The Grand Badgerissimo
    Founding Member

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my blog post. I look forward to hearing what you think!

F.B.

Popular posts from this blog

Draco Layer Four: The Anagogic or Mystical Sense

Image
Here be dragons. And doves. Human beings long for transcendence. Such longing is, for the world, always out of fashion because, of course, it is not a longing for the world, and the world knows it. We know what the world wants. The world—by which we mean Satan, the Lord of the World—wants above all our obedience, a jewel so precious that he will do anything to get it: lie, steal, murder, bear false witness, pretend to social standing, pretend to insider knowledge to get us to consent to his influence.  “God lied to you. You will not die.” And suddenly we are anxious about having other people dislike us, about losing prestige in our social circles, about other people being more popular or influential or successful, about other people having secret knowledge, about our own influence and fame. “You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” And with that temptation, our first parents fell. The irony is cosmic. There they were in the Garden, privy to conversation with God face-to-face, and
Keep reading

Talking Points: Three Cheers for White Men

Image
1. When white women (see Marie de France and Eleanor of Aquitaine) invented chivalry and courtly love , white men agreed that it was better for knights to spend their time protecting women rather than raping them, and even agreed to write songs for them rather than expecting them to want to have sex with them without being forced. 2. When white men who were celibate (see the canon lawyers and theologians of the twelfth century and thereafter) argued that marriage was a sacrament valid only if both the man and the woman consented , white men exerted themselves to become good husbands rather than expecting women to live as their slaves. 3. When white women (see Christine de Pizan, Mary Wollstonecraft, and the suffragettes) invented feminism , white men supported them (see John Stuart Mill) and even went so far as to vote (because only men could vote at the time) to let them vote, not to mention hiring them as workers and supporting their education. And before you start telling me a
Keep reading

How to Signal You Are Not a White Supremacist

Image
Professor Kim READ FIRST:  Why Dorothy Kim Hates Me , The Color of the House of the Lord It’s back to class for those of us who teach in medieval studies, and my medievalist colleague Dorothy Kim , Assistant Professor of English at Vassar College ( pictured in 2014 ), wants to make sure you understand the stakes . The medieval western European Christian past is being weaponized by white supremacist/white nationalist/KKK/nazi extremist groups who also frequently happen to be college students.  That does sound bad. But, wait, it gets worse! Don’t think western European medieval studies is exceptional.... ISIS/ISIL also weaponizes the idea of the pure medieval Islamic past in their recruiting rhetoric for young male Muslims. If the medieval past (globally) is being weaponized for the aims of extreme, violent supremacist groups, what are you doing, medievalists, in your classrooms? Because you are the authorities teaching medieval subjects in the classroom, you are, in fact, ide
Keep reading

The Lord's Prayer, Thanks Be to Dogs

I've never really liked the Lord's Prayer very much. It seems, I don't know, so spare, not really a prayer at all. Not like the collects that we read in church, nothing like Anselm of Canterbury's far more moving and affective prayers. Prayer should be more meditative, right? Not just a blank asking for bread and forgiveness. And yet, I know that to learn to pray, I need to learn the Lord's Prayer. It is the prayer that Our Lord taught us, after all. There must be something in it. My scholarly inclination at the moment is to start looking for commentaries. Maybe Luther's, but that's in my office on campus and I'm at home now. There's the Catechism of the Catholic Church right behind me on the cabinet that I'm using here at home as my "desk", purportedly for keeping handy the things that I most want or need to read next (like that book I'm supposed to review, you know). But then I still wouldn't be thinking about what
Keep reading

Draco Layer Three: The Moral or Tropological Sense

Image
Learn to discern. We all know what sin is, right? Right?!  Once upon a time in the desert , the hermit Evagrius Ponticus (d. 399) set out to make a list of the most deadly ones, albeit he called them “deadly thoughts,” not “sins.” You probably know the list, even if you don’t think you do: gluttony, impurity (a.k.a. lust), avarice (a.k.a. greed), sadness (a.k.a. feeling sorry for oneself), anger or wrath, acedia  or sloth, vainglory, and pride (two different things).  Not quite the list you were expecting? That is because some centuries later—we’re talking ancient times here, when centuries passed like decades do now (or vice versa)—Pope Gregory the Great (d. 604) revised the list, somewhat accidentally, in his commentary on Job.  Gregory had been expounding Job according to its multiple layers—yes, that’s right! Job, like Shrek, has layers! —and he happened somewhere in book XXXI to mention the “seven principle vices” to which Pride,  the “Queen of Sins” gives rise: Vainglory, Envy,
Keep reading