~JcZw

Ok. I am darn irritated again. At fencing yeah can you believe it?

When I think I have to survive a few more mths with such a cca i really feel like conducting violent and destructive motions with my body.

Fine, let me explain why.

Today's training was very cracked up. No warmup, hence giving people leg cramps (I was not the only one lor). And they told us it was "normal". What the *bleep* if every week people go home with leg cramps then what for continue in fencing lar.

Then during the sparring sessions. I'm supposed to be like the most experienced fencer among the year 1s. But happens that epee is different from foil. Foil you must calculate attacks and counter attacks, defence and what not. Epee, the more inelegant kind, is simply to hit others before you yourself get hit.

And it happens that I'm short. I was beaten by a first a guy whos arm is 5 cm longer than me, then a guy who's arm was 10 cm longer than me and a left hander to boot (The only thing I could do was stop hit and fleche, cos with the rubber swords you cannot parry anyway).

Thats still okay. They beat me fair and square. Their hits were good and well calculated, and I was not used to using such a flexible sword nor to guard such a large target area.

BUT

1. The seniors regard the point of the sword TOUCHING the skin as a hit. It has been proven that you need 7.5N of force to compress the electric switch at the tip of the blade to discharge the electrical signal using real weapons. If we had been using electrocal scoring the blade would have been brushing the jacket and no points would have been awarded.

2. The seniors don't recognize flick attacks as a conceivable form of attack. True, they don't work as well for epee as for foil, but believe me, they do occur. Watch olympics semi finals with the china guy against the russian guy... the first or second or third point. When I did that they calle it a "slash" and told me not to use that.

3. The last match I was fencing against a girl. So I should have won. Thats not to say that girls should not win. If they can hit then they deserve to, and this girl did hit. We managed to simultaneous hit until the score was 4-4 or something.

The final vital point I was retreating, and by virture of a longer arm, I hit her, parried her attack, hit her, parried, hit, parried, and having hit her 3 times (I distinctly saw the sword's blade bend as it touched her). So I stopped. She hit me. The point went to her. She won.

I was like "WHAT THE ******!!!". Then I told the refree (who, incidentally, was standing on the girl's side. Which if you notice, is such that he can see her point hit me, but not my point hit her) that it was at least a simultaneous hit. He didn't even say "yes" or "no". He just said "whats a loss to your team anyway, its just a game"

That got me mad. I didn't lose my temper, oh no. But I was really angry. What kind of refree are you that you don't position yourself properly and then you avoid the queries of the competitors. I was totally mad when I went back to my team and I was just sitting there shaking my head as I watched the other pairs duel.

In general I acted generally AP during the rest of the practise. But boy, my temper (which I haven't lost since sec. 2) was just under the surface. I HIT HER 3 TIMES lor. Do you want me to fleche, flick her back for you to see or something.

I don't know whether I would be able to stand this if practise is always like that. Maybe I should just quit and go back to foil with Coach Jeff at Fencing Masters. Huh. The only thing that prevents me from leaving the club right away is for him (the coach) as well as for my own want to do something useful in the competitions for the school, whether as a foil or epee fencer.

And the worst. I neglected other ccas like hockey, air rifle, blahblah cos I wanted to take up fencing.

Now it turns out like this. What could be worst. When all the trials are over and all that. What can I join now anyway? First Aid? Yeah. Then I don't need points for representation and Achievements anymore.

Anyway thats what I feel about the whole system of the fencing club in VJC. There is a nice senior there though... Benjamin, who was talking to me about it afterwards. The years 1s are also quite nice people.

But how can there be any fun if the game is not played properly?