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Showing posts with the label progress

Topsy-Turvy

It's the next morning and I'm still in hell. Everything that my coaches and friends have told me over the years is a lie. "Patience," they say, "it takes time to learn to fence. You've still only been fencing for a relatively short amount of time; it takes years (six, seven, eight) before everything starts to make sense." And yet, my opponent yesterday (see previous post) has only been fencing for three years and a bit and she was in the semi-finals in a very challenging event. "You need to have confidence in your attacks," they say, and yet, she made almost no attacks and won bout after bout without fire, without pushing, without (apparently; clearly I'm missing something) setting up any of her actions except to be ready for the parry-riposte. "You have to want to win," they say. Well, clearly she did, but so did I, otherwise, why would I be in this hell--again? I cannot tell you the number of times I have felt like I do r...