Foolish in Statesboro

The best thing about Statesboro is the waitstaff. Not the service, the look of the staff. The fact that a waitress/kitchen can't tell the difference between ranch and blue cheese dipping sauce is a lot easier to swallow when the waitress looks both hot and attainable.

Fencing wasn't as pretty. Less is more in most avenues in life, and fencing is no exception. My parry 8 is strong like the Earth, but if someone simply jabs at me it is useless. Add that to yet ANOTHER 5 person pool, and I ended up 2-2 after pools. My first DE was against an older C who was both lefty and crafty. I was slow and doing too much, and only my strong 8 parry-riposte saved me from a 15-14 defeat.

My next DE was against my club mate/coach, who has a Junior World Cup medal and 20 years of fencing experience. And he's only 26. No one was more shocked than I when I jumped to a 4-2 lead, my best competition result of any kind against him. Since these things go to 15, there was still a ways to go. My actions got large and sloppy, when small was getting it done. I lost 15-9.

After beating me, my club mate asked how would I coach myself if I could see myself. It's a curious question, and it helped me really analyze what went wrong. The biggest thing was I needed to own my lead, and force my opponents to work to my strengths instead of the exact opposite. Hitting the hand, flèche, and parry riposte work well. I need to focus there.

From there we drove to Gainesville...