~JcZw

I'm using up my second hundred posts quite fast yeah... Don't have anything eventful to write about... but I need something that I can express myself to... since I rarely meet up with outside friends or anything... So here's for some frivalous stuff...

Foil competition today... 9 guys and girls dueling with each other already took 2.5 hours... The FM open next sunday is gonna be super long... Quite sad lar... can't come next sunday =/ Cos we're going off to Perth... Supposedly the last overseas trip our family will make... My sister cannot make it for anymore trips cos of her tight medicine schedule... As for me, the next time I leave the island will probably be to go to Pulau Tekong.

Jonathan Tay and Matt Lopez weren't there today... there were 9 of us though...

Me, VJC
Nicklaus, FM
Michael, FM (Both were Asians studying in Australia... They picked up fencing there)
JunJie, CJC
Su San, FM
Mika, FM
Jun, FM
Kevin, Bishan Park Sec.
Linda, Cres. Girls' School

I think I fenced really poorly... So worn out from the hospital attachment and all... A lot of misgudgements and I gave a lot of points away very easily. Somehow I made it through round robin with 2 victories (Jun and Linda... easy kills) and 2 losses (su san and nicklaus... should have killed them, but I didn't). Seeded 4th

In direct elimination I faced Nicklaus first... he's new, inexperienced, but so unorthodox I didn't know how to fence him =/ Used a lot of close quarters and simple attacks though... We fenced so fast the score was already past 10 within 3 minutes.

The second segment was crazy... A few stop hits put me 14-11, then he chiong-ed until 14-13!! I won 15-13 but it was enough to give me a big scare.

I fenced Junjie in the second round of Direct Elimination. He was the top seed, 3 victories, no losses, and a point diff of 11!! (compared to my 6) Not surprising though... He IS a 6-year fencer... one of the privileged few who've fenced from sec. 1 to now, SJI to CJC (no doubt with a supportive teacher, but enough of that).

So I was with my back to the proverbial wall... and human instinct kicked in. Somehow under pressure my form rose and I fought back like a cornered rat like they say. It was 9 minutes of marching attacks, parries, ripostes, fleche, close quarter... I pulled out every coupe, disengage and counter-parry I had in the bag... But dropped too many points.. Lost 15-12 =/

Oh well.. Su San won the tournament, beating JunJie 15-14 (think I injured him). I was probably 3rd or 4th, depending on whether I could have beaten Mika (there was no 3rd place play off).

Anyway we're gonna have these little tournaments until Novices comes... It should help...

I watched Candice, the RJ girl, fence on thursday. It was really demoralizing... Don't get me wrong... she's a nice person, n she does try very hard to improve her fencing, not the type of arrogant fencer that coach talks about... But she improved so much in her epee style. Should she meet our members in the Novices, the VJ side is going to get killed... In fact at the moment I think that only Maurice and I, of the present year 1s have a good chance in the competition, and even then the chance is not that good.

I mean, she was fencing an ITE girl, and when her opponent fleched her, she did a good circular six that flowed into a close quarter attack. Sure, it was still a doublt hit, but not many fencers even know how to do close quarters! It simply proves how much free fencing can do for your standard.

Sometimes I feel like I'm captaining a sinking vessel, and that my duty is to "go down with the ship". Think something's wrong with my body too.. My skin of my face feels sensitive and seems tight around the eyes when I open and close them... Hope I didn't pick up anything from the hospital!

Oh well we'll see... Farewell for the fencing seniors is tml! Going ECP for BBQ... haha... no money to go anywhere else... ANyway some of them will be around for Novices next year yar... hope we can do well... Then at least it would have been worth it not signing up for OGL...

Yup... so long then, guten nacht