Pleased as Punch
I could not have been more happy with the group of people who opted to travel down to Wilmington for the Iron Maiden. Our fencers were upbeat, happy, and ready to have fun. Our male supporters all had different reasons for going besides the fencing, and the trip seemed to be just the balm they needed.
The trip down Friday night was swift and smooth, and we were in location and bedding down at a good hour with three fencers each getting a bed to themselves, the host in the master bedroom, and my humble self opting for the living room couch. I'm not fencing, I don't need a thing other than a place to put my bedroll. Many thanks to our gracious host for making his family retreat available to his fencing family.
Saturday morning we woke up in good time, had coffee overlooking a cove just off the intercostal waterway, and arrived at the meat locker just when we meant to be. The tournament wasn't really in a meat locker, it was in an unheated ground level salle just below a Catholic school gym, in February. The room was good for fencing, it was just cold. Our foilest needed gloves on both hands and probaby could have used ear muffs under her mask, as she could see her own breath kicking off our day at 9:30am. I myself wished for longjohns from the moment I arrived til the moment we left. Who can predict the weather right?
Our foilest did well in pools, even if she was frozen solid, and went into direct elimination sitting pretty. There is just one thing that none of us considered. In most sports with referees there are multiple referees. Even in sports that are "judged" more than reffed, there is always a pool of judges each with their own opinions of what they saw. Fencing only has one, and one is all you get. Good, bad, horrible, biased, incompetient, you play with the hand you are delt. Our foilest was blessed by never having a bad referee, until this tournament. She had only ever known technique, tactics, truth and justice. She had never had to fence the referee before and it was an experience you just can't prepare someone for. She knew what she was doing, she knew what the other fencer was doing, she did the exact right thing, and the referee called it the other way. Had the direct elimination bout made it to the first break I could have given her a 60 second introduction into how to fence the referee and not the fencer, but alas it wasn't to be. At that point our group broke into tactical teams each with its own game plan. Some worked on the offensive referee, some worked on the bout committee, some went to console a very angry and confused foilest. We couldn't go back into time and right the wrong, but we could make sure that the wrong didn't get repeated. In that I feel we were at least successful.
Foil for us suddenly and unexpectedly over, we turned our focus to the future and to epee. As our fencers, five in all, were spread over three strips, I am not even going to try to give a play by play. Let me do something better by summing it all up in a single satement: I have never been more proud of a group of fencers in my life. Each to their own level, lived not only up to my expectations, but beyond them in every case. In one case, beyond my wildest dreams, thinking not only tactically on strip, but strategically at the tournament level. It was so beautiful, it transcended sport altogether, landed firmly on art and claiming it for its own.
In the end, and the way things go when you field five fencers in a tournament of 15, yours will be forced to eliminate your own, and I think all but two of ours were forced to fall to our own. Its hard to cheer in a situation like that when you have teammate against teammate. However, one thing I can say is no one made it easy for anyone. The ones who lost made the winners work for it and that's good fencing when that happens. Plus, everyone goes home happy.
Best of all we had a terrific spread overall. We may not have taken first, but we made sure the person who did take home first earned it by being truly the better fencer. I can say that very cheerfully as we took both second and third place prizes home with us. In case anyone's wondering I believe as a group our women's epee is the best around. In case anyone disagrees with me, you'd best keep it to yourself. I would hate for our disagreement to have to be settled with diplomacy.
After fencing we joined our outstanding tournament host in Downtown Wilmington for tapas and conversation. Fencing, food and fun, that's what I call a perfect day. I could not get to sleep fast enough after a day like that. Cold, concrete, outstanding edge of your seat fencing, and a sore and swolen knee that kept me up all night. Advil is best taken in fours I've learned.
On our second night we had two more in the DFC beachhouse, and as this was a women only tournament Sunday was spent shopping downtown in Wilmington. As I like to spend money with the best of them, I had a blast! Even if I couldn't find that top in my size. Did I say that out loud?
DFC Women. Best. Fencers. Ever.
