~JcZw

Alright... hope this won't be too incoherent.

Novices Individual was over the weekend. I can't speak much for my own performance though...

Saturday: Men's Epee Individual
My round robin wasn't too good... won 4 lost 1, but that one loss was a 5-0 defeat. I suspect it could have been due to the fact that the piste was not grounded the the RJ feller kept trying for my foot, but its my own fault for not checking.... Oh yea, he ran into me once and slung me to the floor.... RJ drafts all the tall or hefty people into their Epee team, so the impact was quite "whoa".

In the first D.E. I was eliminated already.... I feel really silly about this, but I was fencing with Jason Pek of RJC (My primary school classmates, leftie to boot) when he fleched me. I pulled off the stop hit but he ran into me again. This time I saw the blow coming, so I was prepared to fall, and being a goalkeeper I was heading towards a good landing.

You read in books about those blinding unexpected flashes of pain where everything suddenly seems so detached? I know what it feels like. They told me I landed on the extension cord, which had all the plugs protruding from it, hard enough to disconnect the plug and shut down the scoring system. The left side of my body felt paralysed literally, taking the blow in the ribs. But I was just winded... and a little bruised....

Enough, though, to make every beat, bind and parry an agony. Being a primary foilist, without this, I was basically doomed.... I reckon I should have been more flexible... more adaptive... But I didn't.

Maurice was though. He took out Liang Sheng first, then

Fusheng of SMU, with a dominant victory
Kuhara of FM, such a heart stopper, winning the bout with only 2 seconds to spare literally
Daniel Mendoza of FM
and finally, against XuYang of SMU,

he produced one of the most stunning bouts I'd seen. When the final green light came on, we yelled and danced like crazy... for VJ had obtained its first gold medal.

If there was anyone in VJ, in FM, or even in Singapore who deserved that gold, it was Maurice, who had literally dreamed of it since he'd joined fencing... He was the most motivated of us all (he virtually LIVED in Fencing Masters). He'd come to the camp, free fenced, analysed and re-analysed, reviewed his tactics and his mental outlook time and again.

So dreams do come through...
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Sunday: Individual Men's Foil and Ladies' Epee

It was quite heartbreaking to see the girls' team in action... They did do their best, they even won some of the bouts... But inexperience and lack of free fencing always caught up in the end....

Call it callous, but I had to shut all these regrets and emotions out as I prepared for my own event.

Clarification: For those who think that VJ has a foil team, then please *ahem*, I AM the foil team! Grrrr...

Round robin went quite well actually... I won 3 lost 1... But still seeded 21st unfortunately

My first opponent happened to be my sister's classmate Sirui!!! The bout went quite satisfactorily (I won by a comfortable margin). But the next guy happened to be a certain Omar from Ngee Ann Poly. I just found out that he does ballet n all that.... He can do splits, and in the resulting bout he covered his target area with virtually all parts of his body! His head, right arm, legs, blade, etcetc.... my goodness.... I got thrased 15-6.... sighz.... but I did do my best ever close quarter hit.... Felt thoroughly down and overwhelmed after it...

But a certain RJ girl was proceeding quite well. As mentioned in an earlier post, Candice had thoroughly depressed me with her progress in just 2 months as an epeeist (when I saw the CQC against Kimie I was like "argh, we've had it!"... haha... ok joking... I was also quite impressed (the first time I fenced her it was no mindless bout... I had to think).

Saw her win in her first bout with an ITE? girl.. And although there wasn't that many moves, tactically it was very ok!

I can't exactly remember how many bouts she did... Other than after my elimination, I saw her fence Gaya, where she equalized right "on-the-buzzer" in bball parlance.. It was even more heart-attacking that the Kuhara match! Then when she scored in priority time we were dancing about at the side... hahaa.. Argh! The agony of being on the sidelines... haha

She displayed a very valiant attempt for the silver medal... Don't think she gave up or anything... But the girl she was against was well, different from the previous opponents... It was a good duel though.... She got her bronze medal, and I'm really happy for her.. Well done, well done!

Don't think any other single fencer has given me so many near heart attacks in one day though...

On friday, the year 1s asked me "We've only 1 year or so in fencing. Can we achieve anything?"

Then, I cited Daniel and his U17 bronze (after 5 months) and Jeri and her Novices Gold (after 6 months) as examples.

From now on, I can also cite a certain VJ guy who obtained a Novices Gold after just under 1 year, and an RJ girl who obtained a bronze with only 3 lessons.

Well done, to all VJ people (and of course, to Candice, Cynthia, n the other CJC fencers)... The weekend has been definitely one to remember!