Greetings from Division 1 Nationals
I'm live from Chatanooga Tennessee. I am on my second glass of Tennessee Red and I am a little sleepy. The ride down here was smooth and the fencing I saw was even smoother.
I got to see the round of 8 to the finals of Men's foil. Let me tell you something. Foil down at my level looks NOTHING like foil at this level. These guys even hold the weapons differently. Rather than hold the foil with their thumb and index finger, they hold it with their thumb and other three fingers. The index finger runs down the side of the grip. In effect they are literally pointing at whatever they want to hit. The downside to this is that their index knuckle is sticking out from behind the bell.
Other stuff....They move blindingly quick up and down the strip. We plod like bovines. They are actively controling their opponent's actions. We react like Pavlov's dog (Look it up). They attack equally from anywhere four O'clock to eleven O'clock. We attack from the single place our tip happens to be at the time.
They are on the world team, we are beginners. We will learn, they will just grow old. :D (Wine talking there).
Tomorrow we will be doing research and cheering Carlos Bruno to victory or bust. He'd like that.
