Woody Cavenaugh

Yesterday I fenced in a tournament at Brevard college. I was able to go because Cameron was willing to give me a ride, and she had to be there as the division's tournament observer. My intent was the same as it ever was. Go, meet new people, fence a little, and try not to embarrass myself or my clubmates. It sounds really simple when you write it out like that, but in practice I find it all really complicated to accomplish.

Brevard is a college club, and not a team, so it all reminded me of the early days back in UNCG's fencing club. They were all winging it as best as they could and counting on the kindness of strangers to make it all come together. We brought a box and a set of reels which was a kindness and I got to fence for free in return. That was good. In the bad list, they had lined up a dedicated referee who never showed up. Dedicated referees are really necessary for foil, where the referee has to be concise, knowledgable, focused, and able to withstand the constant questioning and antics of the fencers who will use every trick they can think of to bully you into calling something their way. Most of the rated referees in the state were all at JO's and unavailable.

Foil took a long time. I started helping ref, but I was pretty quickly 0wnz3d by fencers who figured out how to push my buttons. I found myself feeling more like a rodeo clown than an official of any kind. I gave up and sat down, fortunately Cameron stepped up. She didn't want to do it, but she was amazing. Hand signels, calmness, and that eye thing that makes the bad boys sit down and shut up. I'm talking about the total referee package. She finished the pool I started, and went on to referee all the way up to the semi-finals.

Epee, which I was going to fence for free was supposed to start at one PM. Because of a lack of foil referees we didn't get epee on the road until 3pm. About half of the fencers were complaining about it starting late and the other half were thrilled that they had gotten 15 people to show up with enough ratings to make it a D1 tournament. I didn't care either way. I have no ratings aspirations, and I knew that I was there for the duration with Cameron anyway.

My first bout I lost 5-0. I'm not complaining. I always tank my first bout. There is a well known and well documented way to not tank your first bout. It is called "warming up", and usually involves some mild exercise, and something that looks a little like fencing. I made my decision early in my come back career no never to "warm up", because that takes valuable energy and creates heat. I never have enough energy to get me through the day and I always generate way too much heat. The fencer in question was quick and offered no target. To defeat him you have to take the target from him. So in the end I won two, lost two and came out at a negative two. Remember my personal target goal is zero. I believe that the newbie's place is a low negative number and the highly competitive skilled fencers should be a high positive number. That saves the middle for the guys like myself who just want to fence because fencing is fun.

With my 2-2 win loss ratio and my indicator of -2 I came out 8th out of 15 going into direct elimination. So that was just about where I wanted to be. My first DE bout is against the 9th place guy. This is good as I know that my first DE is against a person who is as skilled as I am. If I lose here, it will be a good close bout against an equal, and that is nothing to be ashamed of. As it worked out, the winner of that bout had to fence his next bout against the guy who came in 1st.

Unfortunately that winner was me.

I had been watching the guy fence through the day with a sense of wonder. I wondered why he spent the money on the most expensive FIE rated clear mask he could find. I wondered why he fenced like Daffy Duck. Or, if you would rather give him credit, I wondered why he fenced "Monkey Style". I wondered why he did those silly low bows, faked civility, and kissed women's hands and stuff. I wondered why he was D rated, and I wondered most of all how could he have possibly come out of pools in first place. There were one or two fencers in the room who were better than he was, and they were placed out of pools in second and fourth.

Still those were the cards I was delt, and I knew I could fence my own game and score some touches on him, maybe even enough to make it a sporting bout for him. The first touch was his. Huh? I must have gotten locked out. The second touch was his. Huh? I could have sworn I hit him first. The third touch was his. Huh? Well, he is a D fencer, maybe he's better than I realized. I decided right about here that I wasn't going to blog about this tournament...ever. After two minutes the score was 9-0 and my "Statistical Annomily" light was flashing in the back of my mind. I asked to have my weapon tested. It did not work. One point was annulled. The score is 8-0 now. I wondered just how many touches I lost due to a dead weapon. I scored my first touch of the day and we went into our first one minute break.

Fencing is geometry. It doesn't matter at any given moment where your opponent's tip is. Their shoulder is always in the same place, the length of their shoulder to their elbow is always the same, the length of their elbow to their wrist is always the same, and the epee blade is always the same length. Therefore there are certain divine truths that cannot be undone. The shortest distance between two points is a strait line, and if the other fencer extends his weapon to hit you his closest target (the wrist) will always be the same distance from the end of his weapon. To win, all you have to do is make sure that the tip of your weapon is there waiting for his wrist to arrive at that finite point in space.

At the break, Cameron gave me the great advice I have come to count on from her, best of all it was exactly what I was thinking myself. In the next period he scored four more touches on me. I on the other hand, had scored eight touches on him. All was now right with the world. I knew I had been hitting him before, my kung fu WAS strong. Win or lose, the math comes out right, and for me that is the most important thing.

So in the end I lost a bout I could have done much better in had I questioned my equipment and not myself in the beginning. I guess that is a personal fault of mine. I tend to love and trust my hardware more than I trust my wetware. To be fair though, the problem with my weapon was something I have never before seen in my entire life. Wires break, wires get pulled out of the socket, tip screws fall out, tips fall out of barrels, they do not as a rule fall appart in the barrel.