Orange Coast Division 9/13/09
The short of it: I placed 30th out of 35. It was a rough up and down day.
http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=9479
You should be able to see three images I took screenshots of below.
This tournament I was not only going to fence but also help run and coordinate the other events. I did not get there as soon as I should have but I was there to help set up the computer system and gets things going. I got to CSULB (my old university) and immediately noticed there were some abnormal activity in the parking lot. For the first time the university charge $4 to park on a Sunday, "Flipping ridiculous." This cause such a clutter that every event was pushed back a full hour. Unacceptable, and I ended up writing a mean letter to the university as an alumni about it.
Unlike many of the other tournaments, this tournament is very local to the club and there were many club members and teammates there and were we supporting and hanging out with each other. I help many of the strong foil fencer warm up and get ready before their event started. I handed over my computer power and authority over to another Bout Committee member as I got warmed up.
After an hour delay and annoyances we got our pool assignments. I ended up getting placed in pool #2. My pool looked like so:
The pool was actually pretty evenly matched and I am not really a new kid on the block anymore. I had a good shot at doing really well in the pools but sadly I must have been off my game this day and the bout went as followed.
Artem Arutyunyants(A09) - From San Diego Fencing Center, which is a pretty strong center. I also notice his county code of LAT which is suppose to refer to Latvia. He is a pretty quiet and non-social type of fencer. Tried introducing myself and chatting with him, but never seemed that interested. It could also be that maybe his English is not that great or something else. He is the type of fencing that does some very irregular fencing movements. Once which I call the "shoulder shuffle" which looks like a taunt where is moves from one side of the lateral strip and shakes his shoulders at you and lowers his gravity and repeats. He's very good none the less. His coach however is very argumentative and cause a lot of headaches in the tournament, including when I had to direct this fencer later in the evening and I had to yellow card the coach to shut him up. I did get some double hits off him losing 3-5, I need to observe him more and learn what he really does.
Doug Cairns(C09) - an older type of fencing from No Fear, he's a pretty nice guy and taller than me. He ended up countering me most the bout making me lose 2-5 because I was upset at him from earlier in the pool because of some bad calls he made against me that honestly did made a difference. I just need to get over it and not let things like that get to me again.
Ethan Plante(D09) - Dubbed: "My Young Rival." Ethan defeated me at LAIFC weeks before and this was our second time competing. Having learned from last time, I was ahead 2-0 in the beginning and before he go the bout to 4-3 with less than a minute to go. I was holding my ground and being patience letting him attack me and he wan't able to get to my defenses. I was waiting to winning on time and victory was in my hands. This is where I lost my cool: Doug Cairns was directing the bout just watching the box from a part off distance from where Ethan and I were at. Ethan somehow ended up beating (hitting) my blade from a far off distance and my light went off (saying he hit) and the Doug called halt. Ethan and I were both wondering what happened. He award a touch to Ethan and there was "NO WAY IN HELL" he hit me as where he was at couldn't hit even if he fully extending and on. Ethan and I knew is didn't hit the floor and since Doug didn't see that it went off on my blade he gave him the touch against all my pleading. In honesty, there's nothing Doug could do, he had to award it because he didn't see that Ethan didn't hit me because we was so far from the action. This allowed Ethan to tie the bout 4-4. Afterward 20 seconds second later, the bout expired. Since there was a tie, we have to fence another minute to determine a winner, in order to avoid another draw, someone is given "priority" at a coin toss. Ethan ended up getting priority, which in Epee, is god's greatest thing. If you have priority, you can only lose by getting hit, and can win by hitting or not getting hit in the one minute. This screwed up my plan, because now Ethan will win by me not attacking him which was working all bout. once I did attack, Ethan parried and passed him and and hit the floor and again Doug awarded the winning touch when he didn't hit me. Ethan won 5-4 and is now 2-0 against me.
John Poremski(U) - A fairly new fencer that has some good moves, he touch control and parries are a little weak and developing but he is very aggressive, quick, and strong. He ended up brute forcing his way into my guard and getting double hits. I wasn't able to keep him out and have to work on my strength a little.
Kendall Small(U) - A nice young kid who also had a smaller younger bother in the tournament. He was a pretty good friendly fencer, and ended up pushing me off the strip (embarrassing). He movements are very subtle and likes to wait like me. You get two defensive Epee together and look out there's a lot of mental warfare going one. I however once again lost my cool when Doug Cairns again awards a touch that was on the floor and then it was down hill from there.
I got no victories from where I should have had 2 if it were not for Doug's directing. and was seeded 33, very low.
I had to fence my way into the round of 32 against a man named David Vendl(U). I know David from running tournament for a lot time and has been under a bad coach and fencing club for a long time. Almost 4 years of fencing and he's still not as skilled as some of the young fencer in our club with less than a year. He's not a bad fencer or a bad guy, just not coached well and doesn't practice with people that help him improve skills. There's not much to say about our bout as I defeated him 15-8, having gotten a 5 touch lead (god like in Epee). His attacks were off and kept walking into my point many times.
Then there was Charles Alexander(A09) and overall winner of the tournament. This gentleman is a really cool funny guy that hard not to like and a very very talented fencing and on the Veteran's World Team, as he's also over 60 years old. I knew this was going to be like climbing mount Everest and knew I had to bring my best. I ended up taking a good 8-5 lead and I was stopping him from coming at me. I was shutting out his attacks and then he had to bring out the running attacks which he didn't want to do because try to save energy for later. The attacks allowed them to get back to even at 10-10. I finally stopped running and held my ground which hHe did end up running over me and it was like a 6'2" 230 pounder running over a 5'8" 150 pound standing still, I ended up on the ground for sure (was funny and heard the crowd go "OHHHH"). He then got me with a whip that cut open my arm near the end, and I was begun losing the bout after that. I took him the full 9 minutes distance, which many people and my students were stunned saying Chuck hasn't been taking the distance in a long time and so I lost 14-12. It was close against a certified world Fencing Master and all. He's a good sport and we chatted the rest of the tournament. I liked his one line he said to me "What I don't like about your fencing, which means you should really really like your fencing, is that you don't fall for faints and you keep your distance." which made my day.
This was the first division tournament and while not the greatest result, I did ok in the end, but more improvement needed. I am currently ranked 5th in the Division for Men's Epee. I plan to be Champion the end of the season! http://www.ocfencing.org/points_09.htm
Moving forwards and getting better day by day. Stay Focused and Stay Positive.
http://askfred.net/Results/results.php?tournament_id=9479
You should be able to see three images I took screenshots of below.
This tournament I was not only going to fence but also help run and coordinate the other events. I did not get there as soon as I should have but I was there to help set up the computer system and gets things going. I got to CSULB (my old university) and immediately noticed there were some abnormal activity in the parking lot. For the first time the university charge $4 to park on a Sunday, "Flipping ridiculous." This cause such a clutter that every event was pushed back a full hour. Unacceptable, and I ended up writing a mean letter to the university as an alumni about it.
Unlike many of the other tournaments, this tournament is very local to the club and there were many club members and teammates there and were we supporting and hanging out with each other. I help many of the strong foil fencer warm up and get ready before their event started. I handed over my computer power and authority over to another Bout Committee member as I got warmed up.
After an hour delay and annoyances we got our pool assignments. I ended up getting placed in pool #2. My pool looked like so:
The pool was actually pretty evenly matched and I am not really a new kid on the block anymore. I had a good shot at doing really well in the pools but sadly I must have been off my game this day and the bout went as followed.
Artem Arutyunyants(A09) - From San Diego Fencing Center, which is a pretty strong center. I also notice his county code of LAT which is suppose to refer to Latvia. He is a pretty quiet and non-social type of fencer. Tried introducing myself and chatting with him, but never seemed that interested. It could also be that maybe his English is not that great or something else. He is the type of fencing that does some very irregular fencing movements. Once which I call the "shoulder shuffle" which looks like a taunt where is moves from one side of the lateral strip and shakes his shoulders at you and lowers his gravity and repeats. He's very good none the less. His coach however is very argumentative and cause a lot of headaches in the tournament, including when I had to direct this fencer later in the evening and I had to yellow card the coach to shut him up. I did get some double hits off him losing 3-5, I need to observe him more and learn what he really does.
Doug Cairns(C09) - an older type of fencing from No Fear, he's a pretty nice guy and taller than me. He ended up countering me most the bout making me lose 2-5 because I was upset at him from earlier in the pool because of some bad calls he made against me that honestly did made a difference. I just need to get over it and not let things like that get to me again.
Ethan Plante(D09) - Dubbed: "My Young Rival." Ethan defeated me at LAIFC weeks before and this was our second time competing. Having learned from last time, I was ahead 2-0 in the beginning and before he go the bout to 4-3 with less than a minute to go. I was holding my ground and being patience letting him attack me and he wan't able to get to my defenses. I was waiting to winning on time and victory was in my hands. This is where I lost my cool: Doug Cairns was directing the bout just watching the box from a part off distance from where Ethan and I were at. Ethan somehow ended up beating (hitting) my blade from a far off distance and my light went off (saying he hit) and the Doug called halt. Ethan and I were both wondering what happened. He award a touch to Ethan and there was "NO WAY IN HELL" he hit me as where he was at couldn't hit even if he fully extending and on. Ethan and I knew is didn't hit the floor and since Doug didn't see that it went off on my blade he gave him the touch against all my pleading. In honesty, there's nothing Doug could do, he had to award it because he didn't see that Ethan didn't hit me because we was so far from the action. This allowed Ethan to tie the bout 4-4. Afterward 20 seconds second later, the bout expired. Since there was a tie, we have to fence another minute to determine a winner, in order to avoid another draw, someone is given "priority" at a coin toss. Ethan ended up getting priority, which in Epee, is god's greatest thing. If you have priority, you can only lose by getting hit, and can win by hitting or not getting hit in the one minute. This screwed up my plan, because now Ethan will win by me not attacking him which was working all bout. once I did attack, Ethan parried and passed him and and hit the floor and again Doug awarded the winning touch when he didn't hit me. Ethan won 5-4 and is now 2-0 against me.
John Poremski(U) - A fairly new fencer that has some good moves, he touch control and parries are a little weak and developing but he is very aggressive, quick, and strong. He ended up brute forcing his way into my guard and getting double hits. I wasn't able to keep him out and have to work on my strength a little.
Kendall Small(U) - A nice young kid who also had a smaller younger bother in the tournament. He was a pretty good friendly fencer, and ended up pushing me off the strip (embarrassing). He movements are very subtle and likes to wait like me. You get two defensive Epee together and look out there's a lot of mental warfare going one. I however once again lost my cool when Doug Cairns again awards a touch that was on the floor and then it was down hill from there.
I got no victories from where I should have had 2 if it were not for Doug's directing. and was seeded 33, very low.
I had to fence my way into the round of 32 against a man named David Vendl(U). I know David from running tournament for a lot time and has been under a bad coach and fencing club for a long time. Almost 4 years of fencing and he's still not as skilled as some of the young fencer in our club with less than a year. He's not a bad fencer or a bad guy, just not coached well and doesn't practice with people that help him improve skills. There's not much to say about our bout as I defeated him 15-8, having gotten a 5 touch lead (god like in Epee). His attacks were off and kept walking into my point many times.
Then there was Charles Alexander(A09) and overall winner of the tournament. This gentleman is a really cool funny guy that hard not to like and a very very talented fencing and on the Veteran's World Team, as he's also over 60 years old. I knew this was going to be like climbing mount Everest and knew I had to bring my best. I ended up taking a good 8-5 lead and I was stopping him from coming at me. I was shutting out his attacks and then he had to bring out the running attacks which he didn't want to do because try to save energy for later. The attacks allowed them to get back to even at 10-10. I finally stopped running and held my ground which hHe did end up running over me and it was like a 6'2" 230 pounder running over a 5'8" 150 pound standing still, I ended up on the ground for sure (was funny and heard the crowd go "OHHHH"). He then got me with a whip that cut open my arm near the end, and I was begun losing the bout after that. I took him the full 9 minutes distance, which many people and my students were stunned saying Chuck hasn't been taking the distance in a long time and so I lost 14-12. It was close against a certified world Fencing Master and all. He's a good sport and we chatted the rest of the tournament. I liked his one line he said to me "What I don't like about your fencing, which means you should really really like your fencing, is that you don't fall for faints and you keep your distance." which made my day.
This was the first division tournament and while not the greatest result, I did ok in the end, but more improvement needed. I am currently ranked 5th in the Division for Men's Epee. I plan to be Champion the end of the season! http://www.ocfencing.org/points_09.htm
Moving forwards and getting better day by day. Stay Focused and Stay Positive.